At a Tuesday press briefing, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid bashed the House of Representative’s planned contempt of Congress vote for Attorney General Eric Holder over his failure to provide documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.
“I don’t think that’s going to create a single job,” Reid said in response to a question from The Daily Caller. “This is sheer, basic, low-level politics at its best.”
Democrats have tried several different attacks on Republicans to divert attention away from their efforts on this front. For instance, last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tried to attack Karl Rove, saying she could have had him “arrested” any time when she was speaker of the House, before shifting her Holder defense gears into alleging that Republicans were going after him as part of a massive “scheme” to disenfranchise minorities around the country.
The House is scheduled to vote to hold Holder in contempt on Thursday. President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents Holder is withholding from House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa last week. Issa has since challenged the president’s assertion of that privilege. (RELATED: White House insists executive privilege right, despite Obama’s own admission of apparent ‘serious mistake’)
Reid’s comments come as The Washington Post said that this issue is a political loser for both Republicans and Democrats — for different reasons. Speaker of the House John Boehner has agreed that the issue is a political loser, but is still moving forward with it because, he said, he thinks it’s the right thing to do.
A recent poll by The Hill newspaper found a “clear majority” of Americans oppose Obama’s use of executive privilege to withhold Fast and Furious documents from Congress. Also, a Rasmussen Reports poll shows 40 percent of Americans — a plurality — think Holder should resign, including 21 percent of Democrats.