California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock has joined scores of his House colleagues in pushing for Attorney General Eric Holder to be held accountable for his role in Operation Fast and Furious.
McClintock’s signature on Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar’s official House resolution of “no confidence” in Holder over Fast and Furious makes him the 129th House member to demand Holder’s resignation, sign the resolution or both. Presumptive GOP presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, three U.S. senators and two sitting governors join those members in demanding Holder’s removal from the Department of Justice because of Fast and Furious.
Holder has demonstrably failed to comply with all 22 parts of a congressional subpoena that House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa served him last October. With respect to 13 of the subpoena’s categories, Holder has provided no documents. He is not fully compliant with the subpoena’s other sections, either.
Holder may soon be held in contempt of Congress if he continues failing to comply with the subpoena. House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy joined Issa’s efforts to force Holder to comply with the subpoena recently.
In a phone interview Friday morning, Gosar said the possibility of contempt proceedings against Holder remains – although he and many others want the proceedings to happen faster.
“A number of us are frustrated,” Gosar told The Daily Caller. “After Deputy Attorney General [James] Cole’s comments last week [claims that the DOJ has cooperated with the investigation], my comment was ‘let’s get this on.’ Let’s start going forward with contempt charges. I even asked for it to be done this week, or yesterday, or as early as next week.”
Gosar also said Holder’s stonewalling of Congress over Fast and Furious has gotten worse recently.
“Nope,” Gosar said when TheDC asked if Holder has given up more documents or started complying with the subpoena. “He’s actually stonewalled more. Last week, we heard from Deputy Attorney General [James] Cole that ‘they had given everything.’”
A group of left-wing organizations begged Boehner to stop the contempt proceedings against Holder this week, too. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights recycled old Department of Justice excuses for Holder’s noncompliance with the subpoena, saying — as the DOJ has repeatedly claimed — that there are documents Issa has subpoenaed that the DOJ doesn’t think it has to provide to Congress.
“They reportedly include law enforcement information, grand jury transcripts, and other information that would compromise ongoing investigations and prosecutions,” the liberal groups wrote, adding they think the entire Fast and Furious investigation “seems to be a rush to judgment intended to create a stain on the office of the attorney general.”
Gosar said those liberal organizations are “hypocrites” who don’t care about the real victims of Fast and Furious – hundreds, maybe thousands, of Mexican citizens and two American law enforcement agents: Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jaime Zapata.
“Where are their voices in talking about the Terry family?” Gosar said. “Where are those groups in talking about the Mexican people who have lost their lives?”
