Contempt of Congress case against Holder will proceed

Opponent says timing of resignation no coincidence

By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times

The contempt of Congress case against Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. — the first sitting Cabinet member ever to face such a congressional rebuke — will continue even after his resignation takes effect, but it’s unlikely he will ever face personal punishment, legal analysts said Thursday.

Mr. Holder, is expected to announce his resignation later Thursday, and Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the timing is not accidental: A federal judge earlier this week ruled that the Justice Department will have to begin submitting documents next month related to the botched Fast and Furious gun operation in a case brought by Judicial Watch.

“I don’t think it’s any coincidence he’s resigning as the courts are ruling the Fast and Furious information has to be released,” Mr. Fitton told The Washington Times.

Mr. Holder has served since the beginning of the Obama administration, and has been at the center of many of the controversies of President Obama’s tenure, including the investigation into the IRS’s targeting of tea party groups, the push for stricter gun controls, decisions on enforcing drug laws, thorny race-laced cases ranging from local crimes to voter-identification laws, and defending Mr. Obama’s recess appointments, which were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

Most recently his appearance in Ferguson, Missouri, helped calm a community that had been wracked with days of protests and sometimes violent clashes between police and residents enraged over the shooting death of a black man by a white officer.

In Washington, his clashes with Congress have been bitter, with many Democrats praising him for taking steps to advance Mr. Obama’s agenda and Republicans accusing him of ignoring or subverting the law.

Two years ago the House voted 255-67 — with 17 Democrats joining the GOP — to hold Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents from the Fast and Furious operation.

The House oversight committee had sought the documents, saying they would shed light on who knew about the botched operation, which saw federal agents knowingly let guns be sold to traffickers. Hundreds of those guns turned up at crime scenes in Mexico, and two were found at the site where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in Arizona.

The Justice Department turned over documents related to the operation, but has refused to release documents showing the department’s own handling after a top official sent a letter saying agents never knowingly allowed guns to walk. The department later had to officially retract that claim.

Efforts to reach an agreement on sharing the documents failed, and the House GOP moved ahead with the contempt citation.

The Obama administration said it would not prosecute Mr. Holder because of a long-standing policy that it not pursue contempt cases against individuals when the White House has made a claim of executive privilege.

But in this case, that claim didn’t come until just days before the House vote, Mr. Fitton said.

“The dirty secret was that Obama swooped in and in an unprecedented way asserted executive privilege over these documents which the Justice Department used as an excuse not to prosecute him,” Mr. Fitton said.

After he leaves office, the fight over the documents will continue, but Mr. Holder himself is likely safe from any fallout, analysts said.

“The suit is in his official capacity so I think the new AG whoever that is will be substituted as defendant in the suit under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It should have no bearing on his departure or his life after his service as AG,” said Stanley M. Brand, a former general counsel to the House who specializes in defending witnesses facing government investigations.

For his part, Mr. Holder has expressed anger at the contempt case, and said he believed it was driven by the National Rifle Association. The NRA, whose releases a congressional scorecard deemed to be powerful in swaying lawmakers’ votes, had announced it was scoring the contempt vote.

In a hearing earlier this year, when Rep. Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, accused Mr. Holder of taking the citation lightly, Mr. Holder bristled.

“You don’t want to go there, buddy,” he replied. “You don’t want to go there, OK?”