Holder held in contempt by House

By Larry Margasak Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans in the House of Representatives have won a historic political fight to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, but the party likely is still a long way from obtaining documents it wants in an investigation of a bungled gun-tracking operation. The road leading to a possible lawsuit by the House was filled with emotion last Thursday. More than 100 Democrats walked up an aisle and out of the chamber to boycott the first of two contempt votes, saying Republicans were more interested in shameful election-year politics than documents. Republicans accuse Holder, the top U.S. lawyer, of stonewalling the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious, in which guns purchased in the United States were smuggled to Mexico. In the operation, agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Arizona abandoned the agency's usual practice of intercepting all weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased. Instead, the goal of the tactic known as "gun-walking" was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers who long had eluded prosecution and to dismantle their networks. Gun-walking long has been barred by Justice Department policy, but federal agents in Arizona experimented with it in at least two investigations during the George W. Bush administration before Fast and Furious. The agents in Arizona lost track of several hundred weapons in Fast and Furious. Two of the guns turned up at the scene where border agent Brian Terry was killed in Arizona in a shootout with Mexican bandits. Republicans demanded the documents from Holder for an ongoing investigation, but their arguments focused more on the need for closure for Terry's family. Democrats promised closure as well, but said a less-partisan Republican investigation -- not contempt resolutions -- was the only way to get it. Adding to the emotion of the day, the family of the slain agent issued a statement backing the Republicans. "The Terry family takes no pleasure in the contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder. Such a vote should not have been necessary. The Justice Department should have released the documents related to Fast and Furious months ago," the statement said. It all happened on the day that President Barack Obama's health care law survived in the Supreme Court, prompting some Democrats to speculate that the votes were scheduled to be overwhelmed by news stories about the ruling. About five hours after the court ruled, with news sites flooded with information about the health care ruling, the House voted 255-67 to declare Holder in criminal contempt -- an action that could lead to criminal prosecution but probably won't. The matter goes to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who works under Holder. In previous contempt cases, federal prosecutors in Washington have refused to act on congressional contempt citations against members of their own administration. A second vote of 258-95 held Holder in civil contempt and allows the House to bring a civil lawsuit in an effort to force him to turn over the documents. In past cases, courts have been reluctant to settle disputes between the executive and legislative branches of government. The issue became more complicated when Obama invoked a broad form of executive privilege, a legal position that is designed to keep private certain communications of executive branch agencies. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is conducting the investigation and subpoenaed the documents, will consult with the House counsel's office about a court challenge to the administration's decision not to cooperate, committee spokesman Frederick Hill said. Last Thursday's debate was about Justice Department documents written after Fast and Furious was shut down. The subpoena covered a 10-month period from February 2011, when the Justice Department denied that guns purchased in the U.S. were allowed to "walk" across the border into Mexico, to early December 2011 when the department acknowledged the earlier assertion was in error. Republicans said the contempt citations were necessary because Holder refused to hand over -- without any preconditions -- documents that could explain why the Obama administration took 10 months to come clean about gun-walking. The operation identified more than 2,000 illicitly purchased weapons. Some 1,400 of them have yet to be recovered in the failed strategy to track the weapons to gun-running rings. African-American lawmakers led last Thursday's walkout in support of Holder, the nation's first black attorney general. Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi, who joined them, protested that Republicans had gone "over the edge" in their partisanship. The National Rifle Association pressed hard for the contempt resolutions, leaning on members of both parties who want to stay in the NRA's good graces. The NRA contended the administration wanted to use Operation Fast and Furious to win gun control measures. Democrats who normally support the NRA but who voted against the contempt citations would lose any 100 percent ratings from the group. ---------------- Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans contributed to this report. Published: Mon, Jul 2, 2012