The months of hearings that culminated in last week’s contempt vote against Eric Holder have made the attorney general a villain in some eyes and a hero in others.
But the highly publicized oversight of the nation’s top cop in the wake of Fast and Furious, voter ID, SB 1070 and other issues has also cast Holder in an unlikely role: kingmaker.
This isn’t to say in any shape or form that the proceedings against Holder are rooted in simply generating publicity for lawmakers. It’s just a natural effect that the bigger the case, the bigger the names, the greater the allegations, the more spotlight that’s cast on the players involved.
Some members of Congress were simply destined to become bigger household names with the progression of Holder-related scandals, or even without the attorney general. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) was raring to go after waste and abuse from the minute he knew he would take the gavel after the Republicans’ 2010 midterm rout. A stick figure cop in front of the Capitol dome became his Twitter avatar, and the first hearing his committee held in January 2011 was on the TARP bailouts. Before Fast and Furious was on the radar, Issa was going after federal spending binges, regulatory impediments to job creation, and the failing U.S. Postal Service.
Issa, who did a triple-play on the Sunday shows this weekend, is no-holds-barred and you know that when he sets his mind to push forward with something no amount of arm-twisting will deter him. The Democrats brand him as a combative witch-hunter, which alone elevates him to most-favored-lawmaker status among many on the right, particularly in the grass-roots. His star won’t necessarily be at the same height with Republican House leadership as it is with the conservative base, so it will be especially fascinating to see what lies in Issa’s future, particularly as the end of the 112th Congress plays out.
Quotable: “No, Mr. Attorney General, you’re not a good witness. A good witness answers the question asked. So let’s go back again. Have you and your attorneys produced internally the materials responsive? In other words, have you taken the time to look up our subpoena and find out what material you have responsive to it, or have you simply invented a privilege that doesn’t exist?” — House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing with Holder testifying, June 7, 2012
Here are some others who have stood out as up-and-comers in the Holder proceedings.
Trey Gowdy
Twitter has lit up with this South Carolina freshman’s name every time he’s let loose with a direct, impassioned questioning style similar to Issa’s. There’s also been a hearty helping of indignation from this former district attorney as he faces off with the head of the Justice Department. He’s also an example of a lawmaker whose profile has been heightened even more by being on the right committees as the drama has unfolded: Oversight and the Judiciary Committee, where he’s vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law. Not one to self-censor for fear of igniting controversy, Gowdy called Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) charge that the Holder hearings were really about voter suppression “mind-numbingly stupid.”
In this fall’s election, his seat is classified as safe; even though redistricting has taken some of his home county, he handily defeated his Democratic challenger with 63 percent of the vote in 2010. In a primary run-off that year, he beat Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) by a 70-30 percent margin after Inglis angered conservatives by supporting cap and trade. As a conservative in the House, he’s also tangled with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Right vs. might questions; he voted against the deal to raise the debt ceiling, for instance, while Boehner supported it.
Quotable: “Mr. Attorney General, you have a difficult job, but if you think that you are being singled out because of political ideology or race or any other characteristic or factor when it comes to Fast and Furious, you are sorely mistaken.” – House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing with Holder testifying, June 7, 2012
Jason Chaffetz
This former Utah co-chairman of Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential campaign has come a long way since entering Congress a little more than three years ago. Jason in the House, as his Twitter handle goes, captured budget-cutting consciousness by sleeping on a cot in his office to show that a little scrimping goes a long way. The Republican takes issue with House resolutions that he sees as time- and energy-wasters — i.e., measures to congratulate sports teams — and wants more attention directed to protecting Fourth Amendment rights and other fiscally and socially conservative principles. Last year he was nipping at Sen. Orrin Hatch’s (R-Utah) heels, but that primary matchup never materialized.
Simply put, when Chaffetz opens his mouth at a Holder hearing you know it’s going to be good. He has command of the dais and doesn’t shy away from challenges put forth by other committee members. He also serves on Oversight and the Judiciary committees, and he and Issa have made a potent duo when driving home the details about Operation Fast and Furious — whether or not their push has sat well with Boehner.
Quotable: “In an abundance of caution, Speaker Boehner [and] Eric Cantor, our leader, sent a letter to the White House and Attorney General Holder asking them to answer some very basic questions – that’s been nearly a month. I think the speaker is probably going to be sufficiently embarrassed by the fact that the attorney general is also blowing him off as they did with the subpoena that was issued in October. I find it totally an embarrassment, I find it totally wrong that the attorney general would just ignore a subpoena. You can’t do that in this country and get away with it.” – on Fox News, June 5, 2012
Raul Labrador
This freshman Republican distinguished himself as the only member to call for Holder’s resignation at last week’s markup of the contempt resolution, though it wasn’t the first time Labrador has made that demand. Labrador, from Idaho, sits on the Oversight panel as well as the Congressional Hispanic Conference and the conservative Republican Study Committee. An attorney and small-businessman by trade, Labrador was an upset underdog victor in his 2010 GOP primary.
In May, Juan Williams wrote that Labrador was “at the center of 2012′s explosive politics” by virtue of being Latino, Mormon, and a Tea Party favorite. The Puerto Rican has talked about making the GOP more inclusive by promoting the Republican Party as the answer for Hispanics concerned about economic security and prosperity. It’s his strong presence in the Holder affair that will heighten recognition of this formidable newcomer.
Quotable: “When the attorney general was before this committee last year, I brought to light his historical pattern of willful ignorance with a series of slides highlighting his lack of knowledge when he’s under oath. He knows nothing. He says nothing. And he seeks for nothing. Never in my life have I been met by a man more unconcerned with the search for the truth.” – Oversight Committee markup of Holder contempt resolution, June 20, 2012
Peter Welch
It’s not just Republicans getting a higher profile in the Holder scandals. Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) isn’t exactly a household name in much of the country, having filled Bernie Sanders’ old seat in a 2006 contest that was noted for its extreme niceties instead of mudslinging. But he was probably the most effective representative on his side of the aisle at last week’s contempt markup. He wasn’t blasting Issa, but presenting a measured argument in his failed amendment that the contempt resolution should be postponed to allow time for a Bush-era gunwalking probe. In return, the progressive Dem — with an occasional splash of conservative, such as his high marks for gun rights — has gotten extra MSNBC hits, where the mild-mannered attorney-turned-congressman runs with the party’s Holder-as-target theme. All in all, though, he does more for his party on this than the “mind-numbing” arguments of Pelosi.
Quotable: “I would support a privilege log. If he’s turning over these other items, then that would be progress for us. I don’t know if the committee can have some discussions about us doing our work to bring in some of these people in the Bush administration, where it would at least give many of us peace of mind that we’re doing our full job. So do we really need to do this today? I mean, at some point, we may need to, but I don’t feel like we really need to do it today in order to be true to our mutual obligation to get to the bottom of it and not take no for an answer when it comes to getting documents that we’re entitled to have.” – Oversight Committee markup of Holder contempt resolution, June 20, 2012
Issa should send Josh Randall after the gun running killers Obama and Holder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUROZEmC1WQ&feature=related
Jason Chaffetz is smart and aggressive and I love seeing him go after a weasel like Holder. Gowdy is good too and both he and Chaffetz are not afraid to bring the battle right to Holder, which is about time given what Holder has done to delay this investigation.
I think it’s only a matter of time before we start getting some witnesses to testify against Holder, setting up a “John Dean” moment when you have somebody directly contradicting Holder on the witness stand. Is Obama directly involved in this? I’m not sure about the actual program Fast and Furious, but Obama was definitely involved in the coverup. As usual, the coverup turns out being worse than the crime itself. Had Obama and Holder simply admitted that they implemented this operation, it failed, and then they ended it, then the whole story, though embarrassing, would have gone away in a few weeks. But the coverup now makes this a huge scandal and laws have been broken here (such as perjury and obstruction of justice). Now Holder and Obama are sunk and the only remaining question is if all of this will come out before the election. With people like Gowdy, Issa, and Chaffetz in the House, it just might.
sorry libertyship,but the crime in this case is Murder.
In the last year and a half I have read every article on Fast and Furious that I could find. I have read every comment on those articles. Never before has a Lefty troll made one single comment. Not one.
They are out in force now.
A good sign that this story has broken.
I can’t remember who but one columnist pointed out that the two words to remember in all of this are not “Fast” and “Furious” but, Brian Terry.
Exactly!
No the words to remember here are “Multiple murders on both sides of an International Border by an American President and his Goons”.
It is so refreshing to hear straight talk from people like Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz. Real language, heartfelt, not just bombastic or schmoozing before the cameras that you usually get from Congresscritters.
As much as I feel for Brian Terry and his parents, the Fast & Furious investigation is far bigger than obtaining justice for a slain border agent.
It goes to the rot at the core of this régime, an arrogant and ignorant program implemented by corrupt, manipulative bastards in service to a narcissist’s promise to Sarah Brady that his régime was working “under the radar” on achieving a ban on assault weapons.
I know who killed Brian Terry. Eric Holder did.
Contempt of Congress?
How about Contempt of Law, propriety, justice, and decency?
We elect Senators who ignore us & elect another group who follow the Senate’s conclusions.
And if we ever plan on fixing our government we must bypass Congress and go directly to Article V of the Constitution.
We need to force a Constitutional Convention so, WE the People, can add to, rewrite and clarify the Constitution of this Nation. And while we are at it we need to limit all elected offices in the Federal Government, we need to set the pay and benefits of the Elected people in the Fed, we need to define ‘natural born Citizen’ and Nationalize the Federal Reserve and create a State Reserve Bank in each of the Several States.
Does anyone believe that Congress will ever do their job as long as they are allowed to run roughshod over the citizens they supposedly represent. Wake up these are bureaucrats with power and they will never do the right thing….
IowaHawk tweeted: “Watergate with toe tags.”
Articles of Impeachment for Holder and Napolitano. Then 11/3 appoint a Secial Prosecutor to peruse criminal charges for all involved, including Obama.
Why aren’t more Republicans screaming for this mans resignation? What do they think we elected them to do? I suspect Holder may have something on some of them.
really anyone who makes any statement is attacked by the MSM as an racist and they go after them.
Wonder how much of the wasted trillions of dollars was transferred to African and South American banks?
Issa can’t do this, it has to come from law enforcement, i.e. Eric Holder.
Surely to claim “Executive Privilege” there must perforce have been Executive INVOLVEMENT. Now perhaps not in the initial farce of setting up and running F + F but certainly in the COVER UP.
What is with Soetero’s obsession with HIDING documents witness the Document HIDING of his life history. So the paramount question raised regarding the Unqualified USURPER Barry Soetero is “WHY is he doing it what advantage or PROTECTION does it give to HIM”.
Because if it is not to his advantage or for his PROTECTION then it is a pointless exercise which does not damp down suspicion it draws suspicion to it. The Political fall out thus engendered must have been weighed against the Political fall out that would occur if the TRUTH was revealed. No other explanation is possible.
A Country without borders is not a Country its just a Region, a Country that does not CONTROL its borders is similarly not a Country. A President who FACILITATES the circumvention of his OWN Country’s Immigration Laws is a TRAITOR.
The reason that the Democratic spokespersons and their Oh! so willing tools the ‘in the tank’ Lame Stream EneMedia keep trying to link F & F with Wide Receiver is not because they are under any illusion themselves that there is any connection whatsoever between the two schemes but because they know the general populace is too STUPID to read any more than THEIR pronouncements and will not seek further enlightenment but will just swallow their PROPAGANDA hook line and sinker.
Think the average American voter is not STUPID well in 2008 they voted for a man who was screamingly obvious to anyone with even a modicum of intelligence a USURPER. Barry Soetero Kardashian America’s Unqualified, Inefficient, Incompetent, Gay, Muslim, Celebrity President ………….NUFF SAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Think he is not a MUSLIM then you must be one of the misinformed fools who think that somewhere there is a Barry Soetero/ Barack Obama name change Document and an Indonesian/American Citizen Naturalization Document too(BTW you HAD to be an Indonesian CITIZEN to go to the State School he attended in Jakarta and he was registered at BOTH the State School and the MULTI FAITH Catholic run schools he attended as a MUSLIM) and that the RACIST, antisemitic, anti American BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY CULT is somehow Christian. When in reality it is far closer to ISLAM than it is to Christianity.
Does holder really think he can say and do anything.
Holder and Obama LIED and Brian Terry DIED
Issa to Obama June 25