Finally, Attorney General Holder Is Reined In

He has been charged with contempt of Congress, a first in American history.

The following is part of a signed analysis from the Washington Times of the doings on the floor of the house yesterday:

The House on Thursday cited Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. for contempt of Congress in a vote weighted with political significance — though it does little to break the stalemate over his decision to withhold documents over the Justice Department’s actions in a botched gun-walking operation.

The House voted 255-67 to hold him in criminal contempt in a vote that amounted to a political spanking for Mr. Holder and President Obama, underscored by the 17 Democrats who joined the GOP.

Most Democrats walked out of the vote in a protest led by the Congressional Black Caucus.

It was partisan politics, that walk-out. Great theater but not reality. I suspect the 17 who stayed to vote for censure will use their vote to demonstrate their bona fides back home during re-election time.

It marks the first time an attorney general has been held in contempt by a chamber of Congress.

“We’ve shown more than enough good faith, but the White House has chosen to invoke executive privilege. That leaves us no other options,” said House Speaker John A. Boehner. “The only recourse left for the House is to continue seeking the truth and to hold attorney general in contempt of Congress.”

Speaking in New Orleans after the vote, Mr. Holder called it “misguided and political” and said he ended the gun-walking program once he learned of it — though that was after guns involved were found at the site of a shootout that left a Border Patrol agent dead.

Mr. Holder said he thought Republicans were retaliating against him because he’s blocked voter-identification laws in Republican states, and he repeatedly chided the GOP for even making the attempt

Yep, there’s The Narrative again. Racist white folks trying to get us good people. Yawn. This lie is sooo old it has great-grandchildren by now.

[…]

At issue is the oversight committee’s investigation into Fast and Furious, an operation intended to track sales of U.S. guns and watch the guns be shipped across the border to a Mexican drug cartel. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) lost track of the roughly 2,000 weapons after they were sold.

Some of the guns eventually began showing up at crime scenes, including two that were recovered at the site of a 2010 Arizona shootout that left Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry dead.

Mr. Holder shut down the operation, but his efforts to clean up after it have come under scrutiny. The Justice Department initially told Congress that it never knowingly lost track of guns. After whistleblowers [see book below, by J. Christian Adams] made clear that the guns had been lost, Mr. Holder retracted that claim some 10 months later.

The Justice Department turned over documents about the gunwalking operation, but has refused to turn over documents about how it handled the false information it provided to Congress.

That emphasis is mine. It’s important to note this because that’s the foundation of the Congressional contempt charge passed against Holder yesterday.

Last week, Mr. Obama asserted executive privilege, arguing that those documents are protected by precedent that governs internal deliberations.

Democrats said they aren’t defending the gunwalking operation, but that the committee should leave Mr. Holder alone.

Republicans said they have issued a valid subpoena and that Mr. Holder is stonewalling. They said they are trying to hold the administration accountable and to try to get answers for the Terry family.

Perhaps they ought to consider also trying “to get answers” for the Mexican families whose sons were killed? Justice should extend up to and include the boundaries of the sovereign nation we so cavalierly invaded with this clever plan.

My favorite quote?

“Democrats said they aren’t defending the gunwalking operation, but that the committee should leave Mr. Holder alone.”

So a reasonable person could assume these Democrats know that what the Attorney General did was illegal, but those mean Republicans should quit picking on him just because…because why? They don’t say. Oh, right. Because he’s black, of course. I’d give you the links for those charges but why give such scurrilous lies an implied validity by linking them here. Ummm…try checking our good friend, Charles Johnson. I’ll bet he’s quoting The Narrative like crazy right now.

Holder’s position as head of the Justice Department is sensitive and crucial. Unfortunately, he is much like his president; they both play racialist politics while denying they are doing so.

Perhaps Holder thought he was immune to the rules that have governed past Attorneys General? He certainly has made new, racialist-based rulings — e. g., cancelling the prosecution of members of the New Black Panther Party for their threatening behavior at a voting place in the 2008 election. It’s right on the tape, very clearly it’s intimidation of voters in the last election. But Holder is a professional Grievance Monger; he has turned the Justice Department into Grievance Central and Voter Fraud Inc. So no penalties for these thugs, and a big push against those who fight fraudulent votes.

For those who want to read a full, though saddened, account of Holder’s deportment during his tenure as head of the Justice Department, this book by former DoJ lawyer, J. Christian Adams will serve:

Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department

I read Mr. Adams’ book some months ago and found it chilling. I like to read the comment sections on Amazon. For this one, I grabbed the first review and pasted it here. It wasn’t until I read it just now that I realized how hard it is to amend The Narrative. A young black attorney had to push against her presumptions to read “Injustice”, but she did it:

I expected a biased viewpoint that would suggest the experience of a caucasian man who used to live in South Carolina or a disgruntled former DOJ employee, but Adams admirably succeeds in presenting a genuinely objective and race-blind narrative free of any bias and retaliatory motive. As a minority female attorney, I found Adams’ account refreshingly honest. His viewpoint speaks from the perspective of an American without regard to race, and an attorney committed to upholding the Constitution and the principles of our judicial system. Adams summoned significant courage in coming forward to share the truth of what he has witnessed in the Justice Department’s Voting Rights division, despite his obvious reluctance to disparage an institution he genuinely respects and whose principles he clearly takes to heart. The compassionate tone of this book actually gave me faith that there are decent, principled government employees who are willing to make personal sacrifices in an effort to help make America a better place for future generations by letting the truth be heard.

This book provides an in-depth and factually accurate account of not only the history of civil rights in America, but the history of voting in America—a lesson that resonates even more fervently today as many countries around the world struggle to achieve fair and open elections. I would never have been aware of the voting abuses that occur on our own soil, and not in some distant infant democracy.

To which I can only add, “Amen”.

Attorney General Holder deserves censure and removal but by the time they get around to that, it may well be moot as a new administration comes to town.

And Holder? Just to show “it don’t confront me none” (as they say around here), he went to Disneyland. Given the unreality in which the current administration dwells, Holder’s fun trip sounds might like a busman’s holiday.