A congressional committee filed an unprecedented civil suit against Attorney General Eric Holder. Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Ca.), who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, announced on his official web page that the committee he leads filed a federal civil action against Holder on Aug. 13.
Issa also announced the lawsuit via Twitter on Sunday, Aug. 12. The purpose of the action is to require Holder to turn over additional documents about the “Fast and Furious” gun program. Holder has said he is not releasing some documents because they involve current investigations.
President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege to withhold the documents.
Issa stated, “After promising an unprecedented level of transparency, the President is attempting to expand the reach of executive privilege to obstruct the truth about the reckless conduct that contributed to the death of a Border Patrol Agent and countless Mexican citizens.”
The documents sought by the suit are no longer about the gun program, according to the complaint, but about the administration’s alleged attempts to obstruct the congressional investigation of the program. “Attorney General’s conception of the reach of ‘Executive privilege,’ were it to be accepted, would cripple congressional oversight of Executive branch agencies, to the very great detriment of the Nation and our constitutional structure,” according to the complaint.
The committee held Holder in contempt of Congress in June, but the Justice Department declined to enforce the contempt charge. Holder is head of the Justice Department.
In the “Fast and Furious” program, Border Patrol agents attempted to trace weapons legally purchased in America to drug cartels in Mexico.
Someone murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona on Dec. 14, 2010. His killers left behind two guns. Investigators traced one of the guns and found that a Fast and Furious suspect bought it in Arizona.
An ATF agent named John Dodson said on CBS news after Terry’s death that officials, including his supervisor Dave Voth, told him to refrain from seizing guns in order to track them to drug cartels in Mexico. That was called “gun-walking.”
According to a six-month investigation including scores of interviews and the review of thousands of pages of ATF documents by Fortune magazine, ATF agents were not able to seize guns purchased legally under Arizona’s unusually lenient gun laws. In a June 27 article, Fortune reported, “the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies.”
“It seems clear that House Republican leaders do not want to resolve the contempt issue and prefer to generate unnecessary conflict with the Administration as the election nears,” said Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), in an Aug. 13 statement. “Unfortunately, the American public suffers as House Republicans disregard the real work that needs to be done.”
Cummings is the ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The General Counsel to the House of Representatives filed the papers in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of the Oversight Committee.
Congress is on recess until Sept. 10.
The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
Friends Read Free