He was already on ICE.
"Congress finds AG Eric Holder in contempt; Many Democrats in House protest move" by Charlie Savage and Jonathan Weisman | New York Times, June 29, 2012
WASHINGTON — The dispute centers on whether the Justice Department must turn over e-mail and memorandums showing its internal deliberations last year as officials grappled with a congressional inquiry about a botched Arizona-based gunrunning investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. President Barack Obama has invoked executive privilege to block the subpoena.
In early jostling Thursday, Republicans repeatedly invoked the death of Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent killed in a shootout in December 2010. Two guns that had been purchased by a suspect in the gunrunning case the previous January were found near the scene.
‘‘These contempt charges aren’t about politics,’’ said Representative Rich Nugent, a Florida Republican. ‘‘They aren’t about Attorney General Holder or President Obama or anything else but this: A man died serving his country and we have a right to know what the federal government’s hand was in that. It’s clear this country somehow played a role in his death. We need to root it out, find the cause and make sure this never, ever happens again.’’
If they are lied into wars of occupation in the Middle East, however....
Democrats dismissed the effort as an election-year witch hunt. They said previously disclosed documents and testimony had established that Fast and Furious was the work of Arizona-based law enforcement officials who were frustrated by the difficulty of bringing low-level gun cases, and they contended that Republicans were seeking to embarrass Holder for political reasons....
Yeah, maybe it's a big game between you to; however, this 21st-century Iran-Contra case is serious!
The only question was how many Democrats representing conservative-leaning districts would cross party lines to join in citing Holder. The National Rifle Association was pressuring them to do so, announcing that it would score the vote in its report card on how lawmakers approached Second Amendment gun rights.
In the end, 17 Democrats voted yes....
The walkout echoed one by many Republicans in 2008, when the House, led by Democrats then, cited two Bush administration officials for contempt in a dispute about information related to a mass firing of US attorneys....
Yup, the Democraps never did a damn thing about attorneygate.
And you wonder why I'm sick of their shit ass?
A citation for contempt of Congress carries symbolic weight, but its practical impact is limited because the executive branch controls prosecution decisions.
Translation: You have been served a s*** turd fooley!
Fast and Furious was an investigation by Phoenix-based agents of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives into a gun-smuggling network that recruited low-level ‘‘straw buyers’’ — people without criminal records who could lawfully purchase weapons — to buy guns, which were then funneled to a Mexican drug cartel.
The investigation, which ran from late 2009 to early 2011, is controversial because investigators, frustrated at the difficulty of bringing cases against suspected straw buyers, are said to have used the risky tactic of ‘‘gunwalking,’’ meaning they sometimes failed to swiftly interdict weapons.
The suspects under scrutiny ended up purchasing about 2,000 guns, most of which are presumed to have reached drug gangs....
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"Justice refuses to charge Holder with crime; Tells Congress no further action will be taken" by Larry Margasak and Pete Yost | Associated Press, June 30, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department declared Friday that Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to withhold information about a bungled gun-tracking operation from Congress does not constitute a crime and he won’t be prosecuted for contempt of Congress....
In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, the department said that it will not bring the congressional contempt citation against Holder to a federal grand jury and that it will take no other action to prosecute the attorney general. Dated Thursday, the letter was released Friday.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the decision is in line with longstanding Justice Department practice across administrations of both political parties.
‘‘We will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege,’’ Cole wrote.
In its letter, the department relied in large part on a Justice Department legal opinion crafted during Republican Ronald Reagan’s presidency....
Although the House voted Thursday to find Holder in criminal and civil contempt, Republicans probably are still a long way from obtaining documents they want for their inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed gun-tracking investigation focused on Phoenix-area gun shops by Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The criminal path is now closed and the civil route through the courts would not be resolved anytime soon.
‘‘This is pure politics,’’ White House spokesman Jay Carney said....
No, it's not.
More than 100 Democrats walked out of the House chamber to boycott the first of two contempt votes, saying Republicans were more interested in shameful election-year politics than documents.
Republicans demanded the documents for an ongoing investigation, but their arguments focused more on the need for closure for the family of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Two guns identified by the Fast and Furious tracking operation were found near his body after a shootout in Arizona.
Democrats promised closure as well, but said a less-partisan Republican investigation 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.
The contempt votes happened on the day that 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....
Holder went away; the health ruling didn't.
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