Next Wednesday, the House of Representatives will vote on whether to cite Eric Holder, Attorney General, for contempt of Congress. The House scheduled that vote after Holder kept withholding information on Operation Fast and Furious, and after Rep. Darrell Issa showed that Holder knows more than he’s telling. But that citation, even if it passes, will be too little, too late.

The Fast and Furious cover-up

The facts about Operation Fast and Furious should “infuriate” anyone. Since 2009, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ordered gun stores in four border States to let known gangsters buy guns. ATF said it meant to track those guns as the gangsters carried them across the border. They did not. A year and a half ago, a US border agent died in a gun battle. Two of the guns that those gangsters bought from those gun stores turned up at the murder scene.

In January of 2011, the House of Representatives changed hands. When Darrell Issa (R-CA) became chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he started looking into Fast and Furious. The more he found, the angrier he got, or so it seems. No doubt Eric Holder, whose department includes ATF, would have preferred that no one hear of Fast and Furious outside of his department and Issa’s committee. But men like David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh covered the story almost at once. And in February of 2011, CBS News became the first old-line news organ to cover the story.

But despite the tireless work of men like Codrea and Vanderboegh, nothing meaningful has happened.

Contempt citation

Will something meaningful now happen? At 1:00 a.m. today, WND warned that the full House might vote to cite Holder for contempt of Congress. Issa and others used that phrase a few times last year, but nothing came of it. The WND report came suddenly. Two hours later came this report by CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson: the House would vote on June 20 to consider citing Holder for contempt. (Attkisson also bragged about being first to expose Operation Fast and Furious nationally. That clearly nettled Codrea and Vanderboegh.)

Considering that CBS got to the whistleblowers through David and me (and we have the emails to prove it), that last statement [by Attkisson] is a cheeky bit of hubris.

See also this report in The Washington Times, which Newsmax.com reprinted.

Vanderboegh, besides calling Attkisson for exaggerating her own importance, also said,

Now we find out what Issa, Boehner, and the GOP leadership are made of.

Sadly, we probably know what those men are made of: hot air, straw, or both.

Fast and Furious already contemptible

Eric Holder, Attorney General. Photo: US Department of Justice

Anyone who has followed Codrea, Vanderboegh, or this space knows that Eric Holder has already poured contempt on Congress from the beginning. Nick Purpura, CNAV contributor and activist, puts it this way:

Eric Holder has been in contempt of Congress. And here we are, a year and a half after someone died, and we have seen no action? Are you kidding me?

Purpura reserved most of his anger, not for Holder, but for John Boehner, Speaker of the House.

Boehner has no excuse for not taking action. He should have charged Holder last year for obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and accessory to murder.

Purpura also chided Boehner for not looking into Barack Obama’s eligibility to be President. He has earlier pointed out that, under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 as amended, Boehner could remove both Obama and Joe Biden from their offices and become Acting President.

Why won’t he act, even when he would serve his own ambition by acting? Holder, Obama, and their friends must have something on Boehner, and he is afraid to act.

Purpura does not expect the House to do anything, vote or no:

What are they waiting for? For [Mitt] Romney to win, so that all these issues go away?

He has a point. The voters can certainly remove Obama, Holder, and all the rest from office. But without formal charges, Holder especially will get away with:

1. Murder, and
2. Planting “throw-down” weapons to justify more gun control State-side.

Related Fast and Furious articles:

• A Journalist’s Guide to Project Gunwalker, Part Ten. Has links to nine earlier sets of updates.
• Where’s the outrage?
• Impeachment
• Embarrassment
• The next level
• More subpoenas
• Vindication
• Shell game
• Sacrifices
• Promotions
• Incriminations
• Felonies
• Cover-ups continue
• Death threats
• Subpoenas
• Fast and Furious is not Gunrunner
• Cover-up
• The unraveling
• Throw-downs

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