Politics

Huckabee demands Holder’s resignation citing ‘disgusting fiasco’

Matthew Boyle Investigative Reporter
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Former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee has now called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign his position over Operation Fast and Furious.

“I’ve decided that it’s time for the attorney general to do the president and the country an important service and step down,” Huckabee said on his weekend Fox News Channel show.

“Now I don’t say that lightly and I don’t say it because his political affiliation being different than mine. I’ve come to refer to him not as simply Eric Holder, but Eric ‘With-holder’ because he has become the master of withholding documents, information, and truth from the House, the Senate, and the American public,” said Huckabee.

“In an administration that pledged transparency, the Department of Justice has operated not merely opaquely, but behind the stone walls of stone-walling,” he said. “After 18 months, numerous hearings, and threats of contempt of Congress charges regarding the disastrous Fast and Furious program that used American taxpayer money to buy guns, put them in the hands of Mexican drug dealers, he has released just over 7,000 documents of 140,000 that Congress has requested. 300 Mexicans are dead, and one American border patrol agent is dead. He has yet to answer what he knew and when he knew it about this disgusting fiasco.”

Huckabee joins 129 House members, five U.S. senators, two sitting governors and presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in calling for Holder to leave office. Others who have joined them include the NRA, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and many candidates nationwide. The National Border Patrol Council union, which is AFL-CIO backed and represents about 17,000 agents nationwide, has also called for Holder to resign.

Huckabee said he expects “it’s going to be assumed that my call for Eric With-holder’s resignation is all about the election and raw partisan politics.”

But, Huckabee said, it’s really politically better for “Republicans if With-holder just holds on.” (RELATED: Slain Border Patrol agent’s mother to Holder: You’re ‘a joke’ and a ‘coward’)

“I mean he’s too easy a target going into the heat of the election,” Huckabee said. “No, this isn’t about the election. It’s about the country. I am less interested in his hurting President Obama than in hurting the rule of law and a respect for the Constitution. I sometimes try to use humor or satire to get my point across, but frankly, I don’t see anything funny about the contempt that Eric With-holder seems to have not just for Congress or the states, but for we, the people. And it’s time for him to go.”

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