(CBS News) The House is moving forward with a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over a bungled gunalking operation, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Wednesday.
"We've given them ample time to comply," Boehner said of White House officials.
The House Oversight Committee voted last Wednesday to hold the attorney general in contempt for refusing to release documents relating to Fast and Furious, a failed government operation that landed guns in the hands of Mexican cartels. House Republican lawmakers have questioned the administration's role the case after President Obama granted Holder executive privilege.
"Even as late as yesterday the White House sat down with some of our staff to outline what they'd be willing to do," Boehner continued. "Unfortunately, they're not willing to show the American people the truth about what happened."
A senior administration official said Tuesday the White House "reached out" to the staffs to Boehner and House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and provided a "representative sample" of the documents. But a congressional aide told CBS News that the sample failed to quell its concerns because it was fewer than the 30 pages it had requested.
"It's an unfortunate place where we are, but our members raise their right hand and swear to uphold the constitution of the United States and the laws of the United States," Boehner said. "We're going to do our job."
Though the National Rifle Association is keeping score on the vote, which is scheduled for Thursday, Boehner said the organization did not play a role in his decision.
Jill Jackson contributed to this report.
I'm a liberal. As a liberal I believe that not only do people who murder with guns deserve to get justice, but gun facilitators, suppliers, and manufacturers ought to bear in the responsibility for reasonable gun owenership....not to arm any urban or other battleground. In this way both the previous Administration and this one, including Holder bears some repsonsibility for the death of many (not justtheone agent).
NRA and Gun advocates ALWAYS push for the gun manufacturer and distributors having NO repsonsibility for gun deaths....as in "GUns don;t Kill People; people kill people." But in this case, because it is the Obama Administration....they should have been repsonsible enough to reclaim EVERY last gun.
Look at what happened to the Agent and it itthe NRA/gunrights Utopia EVERY-FREAKIN_BODY had a gun...including the Agent. Look what the Utopia looks like: There are a hell of a lot of dead people and the Cartels still have the upper hand.
The Liberal lesson to be had is that we need to outlaw and punish distributors AND gon manufacturers for feeding the fray AS well as those who violently use the guns.
Had "wide Reciever" been uncovered during Bush II, the Right would have touted the 2nd Amendment aspects of the program -- not condemmed the stupid idea.
Because of the pure partisan repsonses, I have to say this is purely a witch hunt. Glad the vote will beover tomorrow.
The manner in which this "inquiry" has been conducted has seemed highly questionable from the beginning.Instead of getting to the facts, the focus has always been on Eric Holder.It's never a minor thing when anyone loses his or her life, and there were problems with this operation; HOWEVER, this whole case has become about 90% plus, political; with Issa accusing the White House and Eric Holder of a cover-up,while being forced to admit on Sunday that there is no evidence of any cover-up of wrongdoing on their parts.
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Sandy, read up on that thing about no cover-up some more.
they are saying there is no evidence (yet) that the White House is involved in a cover-up. they are not in any way saying that there isn't a cover up at Justice. In fact, they're saying Justice is hiding something, as evidenced by Holder's recalcitrance and uncooperative attitude.
Boehner said the White House protecting Holder smacked of a cover up.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/06/27/fortune_magazine_tries_to_tell_the_truth_about_fast_and_furious_fails_miserably
Accountability in government is important,but these operations ended when Brian Terry lost his life.We , unfortunately, have had times, during different administrations of both parties, when certain operations carried out by different agencies( the F.B.I., C.I.A., the military, etc), have gone wrong.Some of the judgment calls even that were made turn out to be flawed( and this will most definitely happen again in the future some time); but one of the most disturbing things about this is the suggestion that these officials,( and mainly Eric Holder, in this particular case) acted in bad faith.Even though he ordered a stoppage of them, many people on the left disagreed with President Obama's decision not to pursue Bush administration officials for certain interrogation methods used that were controversial, and considered torture-even though he had documentation proving that this happened.Perhaps the president's thinking was just this-that their motivations were honorable in trying to protect the public,even though their tactics weren't right; and that it wouldn't be good for America, but very divisive, to call them into question .Right or wrong, it was the president's judgment call on the matter, and maybe the right one.The GOP in Congress should take a page from the president's playbook on this, and move on.
These operations
Let's get this straight: Holder went to Congress and said he knew nothing about F&F until 3 weeks before that day. Then the DOJ had to submit an amended statement walking back from Holder's false claim. So Issa wants to see the emails from the time of Holder's false claim until the amended statement.
Oh yeah, I totally see how anyone wanting to see those emails is a racist-right-wing-nut-conspiracy-theory-witch-hunter.