Dems Hand-Deliver Letter to Boehner Asking to Stop Holder Contempt Vote

A member of the House Judiciary Committee hand-delivered a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) today asking him to stop tomorrow’s planned contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder.

“I have been a member of the House Judiciary Committee for quite some time now and never in my years of service have I seen an action as short sighted and partisan as this when it comes to the Attorney General of the United States or any other Cabinet Member of the President of the United States,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). “I have witnessed hearings on Impeachment of a President, Waco and other procedures but this possible contempt vote is nothing but a partisan political investigation.”

Sixty-five additional Democrats signed the letter asking Boehner to abandon a vote on the resolution, which passed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on a party-line vote last week.

“This sixteen-month investigation found no evidence whatsoever that the Attorney General knew about ‘gun-walking.’ Fast and Furious was a bottom-up strategy. There is no evidence of White House involvement in ‘gun-walking’ – as Chairman Issa admitted on national TV last weekend. ‘Gun-walking’ started in 2006 under the Bush Administration,” Jackson Lee said.

The letter says that the conflict “can also be resolved without holding Attorney General Holder in contempt.”

“We believe the Attorney General is acting in good faith based upon his actions over the course of the past 15 months,” the Democrats write.

“A contempt citation should be an act of last resort, after lengthy preliminary procedures, negotiations, gathering of evidence through other methods, appeals to potential intercessors and intermediaries. Again, throughout our nation’s history, Contempt Citations have been extraordinarily rare which is evidenced by the fact that the House  has declared just four people in contempt over the last three decades. For these reasons and more we request that you elect not to bring the Contempt Citation to the Floor this Thursday.”