Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Joe Walsh reiterated their demands for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation on Thursday, follwing the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report and subsequent testimony.
“As the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, made very clear today in his testimony and in his final report, Attorney General Holder and top officials at the DOJ failed to connect the dots and realize the consequences of this ill-conceived operation,” Gosar said in a statement after Horowitz testified before the House oversight committee on Thursday. “This neglect of accountability has cost lives on both sides of the border, putting the American and Mexican people at risk of increased violence. To this end, it is time that Attorney General Holder recognize that his time of spinning and stalling is up. His resignation is long overdue and now would be a good time to allow us as a nation to move forward and restore the confidence of the American people in the DOJ.”
Gosar made that statement Wednesday evening – right after Horowitz’s report was released.
The internal DOJ report concluded that Holder wasn’t personally aware of gunwalking during Operation Fast and Furious, but several of his senior DOJ subordinates were and failed to – as the inspector general says they should have – tell him.
Gosar thinks the culture Holder has created is grounds for his termination or resignation.
Illinois Republican Rep. Joe Walsh also doubled down on his call for Holder to resign for his leadership failures, as demonstrated by the report.
“What bothers me most is Attorney General Eric Holder’s continued ability to deflect all responsibility,” Walsh said. “It should have been the attorney general who sought justice for Brian Terry’s murder, not the whistle-blowers, and that is why I was one of the first members to call for his resignation. Holder was entrusted to oversee all operations of his department, and therefore he should be held accountable for his staff’s actions. Instead, the AG refused to provide subpoenaed documents to this committee, he and his department gave ambiguous and conflicting statements to congressional inquiries, and he hid behind bogus presidential decrees. This is one of the worst displays of leadership I’ve seen by a member of the cabinet.”