Holder cited for contempt

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Setting up a potential constitutional confrontation, a Republican- controlled House panel voted Wednesday to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress, just hours after President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege — for the first time — to withhold documents demanded by the committee.

The party-line vote was 23-17 after hours of caustic debate. The controversy goes next to the full House, where Republican Speaker John Boehner said there would be a vote next week unless there was some resolution in the meantime.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa of California said that “more than eight months after a subpoena” for the documents — which concern how the Justice Department learned there were problems with an Arizona probe of gun-running into Mexico — Obama’s “untimely assertion” of executive privilege was no reason to delay the contempt vote.

No, it was just political, said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat. He called the vote “an extreme, virtually unprecedented action based on election-year politics rather than fact.”

The last Cabinet member to be cited by a congressional committee for contempt was Attorney Gen- eral Janet Reno in President Bill Clinton’s administration. That was never brought to a follow-up vote in the full House.

Technically, if the full House approves the Holder contempt citation, there could be a federal criminal case against him, but history strongly suggests the matter won’t get that far.

Whether Congress could force the Justice Department to turn over the documents is a basic question. In the Watergate case, the Supreme Court ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over taped conversations to a criminal prosecutor. But in the Nixon case, the justices also found a constitutional basis for claims of executive privilege, leaving the door open for presidents to cite it in future clashes with Congress.

In the administration’s claim of executive privilege, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said in a letter to Issa, “We regret that we have arrived at this point after the many steps we have taken to address the committee’s concerns and to accommodate the committee’s legitimate oversight interests.”

As the day went on, comments rapidly grew more heated. A Boehner spokesman suggested administration officials had lied earlier or were now “bending the law.” Cummings said Issa “had no interest” in resolving the issue and was trying to pick a fight.

The White House reacted sharply to the committee action. “Instead of creating jobs or strengthening the middle-class, congressional Republicans are spending their time on a politically motivated, taxpayer-funded election-year fishing expedition,” Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said.

Boehner raised another question after the president invoked the privilege.

His press secretary, Brendan Buck, “The White House decision to invoke executive privilege implies that White House officials were either involved in the ‘Fast and Furious’ operation or the cover-up that followed. The administration has always insisted that wasn’t the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?”

Democrat Cummings said Issa could have settled the matter with Holder reasonably but has instead resorted to “partisan and inflammatory personal attacks.”