Is Eric Holder now in Contempt of Congress? 

Not Yet.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has not yet acted to slap Holder with Contempt charges, but if anything is to be gleaned from his testimony today before the Congressional Committee, it is that Eric Holder is asserting as his defense for responsibility in the matter of the tragedy and fiasco of the gun tracking program, now notoriously known as “Fast and Furious,” that he did not know about the operation; that he was not informed of it, had no knowledge of it, and therefore has little or any culpability or bears any responsibility and accountability for it, before the issue exploded into what it is today.

Unfortunately for Holder, the Republican Members, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a report this week that contradicts Holder’s assertions: Main Justice: Extensive Involvement in Operation Fast and Furious.

The report is a memorandum that “provides supplemental information detailing Main Justice’s involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. For months, the Department blamed Fast and Furious on the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) – notwithstanding the fact that they are both components of the Department of Justice. In fact, Main Justice had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged.” See that report HERE

Holder’s assertion that he did not know is immensely significant, because it IS precisely U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s job to know what goes on in his Department and when.

Eric Holder, however, pretends to have no clue that it was and is his responsibility “to know.”  Holder openly admits that he was oblivious to the existence of that operation.

As apalling as is his admission, one can only wonder if he is asserting “not knowing” as his defense, because that is his “defense of last resort,”  Is Eric Holder therefore assuming ignorance as his defense, because to assume responsibility in any manner other than that, would be utterly and completely damning?

Who, that has any experience as an executive in any capacity, would have the gall to claim that he did not know about a critical project which was operating under their charge? Indeed, not taking responsibility for one’s area of responsibility as an executive is a devastating situation at any level and it is a severe indictment of the executive in charge of that area.

If this is the case, then Eric Holder is merely waiting out Congressional investigators, and will continue to be mum about Fast and Furious.

Congressional investigators quizzed Holder repeatedly to try to get him to acknowledge that he knew about the program, but he is steadfast in claiming ignorance of the program before a certain date.  (See Cover Up?   Fast and Furious)

Whether subsequent findings and evidence show that he needs to be prosecuted for alleged misdeeds remains to be seen, but such blatant irresponsibility, such abhorrent refusal to stand up and be accountable for the department he was appointed to be in charge of, demands that he leave. Eric Holder Must Go.

Tea Party favorite, Senator Jim DeMint said yesterday that he was calling for Eric Holder to step down. Speaking on GBTV’s “Real News from The Blaze,” DeMint:

“I have lost confidence because there are a lot of things that have happened, his raid on Gibson Guitar, like they were a bunch of criminals, I mean — these things, in addition to just the botched Fast and Furious. Some of the lawsuits against our state and what they’ve done in this administration, aside from just the Justice Department, like the NLRB attacking Boeing in South Carolina, and that’s affiliated with the whole justice perspective of this administration,” DeMint said.”

THE BLAZE Article is HERE

Sixty three other Congressmen have also called for Holder to resign. 

The following videos demonstrate the frustration of Congressional investigators in light of Holder’s defense of “ignorance,” about Fast and Furious matters.

The first video is Massachusetts Democrat Representative Lynch:

The following Video epitomizes Congressional frustration regarding Holder’s assertions:

Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC): “…13 Months later we have the possibility of somebody being punished for an agent being killed. This is absolutely absurd…” 

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) tries to get answers about who is communicating with whom about Fast and Furious….

Basic information about developments in the Fast and Furious case came to light months ago and add a critical perspective:

http://youtu.be/SvRzrSXota8

ATF Special Agent John Dodson explains that agents were mandated to “Let these guns go.”

“We were giving guns to people that were killing other humans.”

Attorney General Holder did not find out about Fast and Furious until February of 2011:

However, the Justice Department’s most recent document drop contains information, in particular, an email exchange that reveals Eric Holder may have perjured himself.

According to an article by Bob Owens at the Daily Digest at Pajamas Media,, an email dated December 14th, 2010, the day Border Patrol agent Brian Perry was shot, “issued from someone in ‘HQ’ to U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke” stated, among other things that “Our agent has passed away.”

Owens quotes that Burke stated in an email to Eric Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson, regarding “the shooting,” that he had alerted the AG (Attorney General), the acting DAG (Deputy Attorney General), etc.

“Late that afternoon, Burke received an email saying two guns recovered at the scene were tied to an ‘on-going Phoenix ATF inv[estigation]‘ and informing him he would be getting a call from ATF’s Bill Newell. Burke forwarded the information that the guns recovered at the scene of Agent Terry’s death were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store as part of ‘the investigation we were going to talk about.’…Wilkinson, Holder’s deputy chief of staff, informs Burke that he would ‘call tomorrow,’ December 16, to discuss the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent apparently murdered with the very guns the Department of Justice ‘walked’ to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.”

Owens concludes:

“It is reasonable to assume that December 16 or 17, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed by his deputy chief of staff that Terry was killed with a walked gun from Operation Fast and Furious. Considering the potential damage the brewing scandal could cause, Wilkinson would have been grossly negligent if he did not make informing the attorney general a priority.”

See Owens Article HERE

Any man charged with the responsibility with handling “the bad guys” would have the gumption to admit to mistakes and take his medicine, when circumstances required it. He would lead by example. However, in a position that requires not only administrative leadership, but the courage to confront not just criminals, but psychotic, socio-pathic mass murderers, Eric Holder has obviously discovered that he is way over his head.

Indeed the hearings show clearly that mere allgegations by Legislators cause him to get rattled, and that he responds by asserting “fairness” and “respect” for himself by those who question him.

How does someone like that fare when face to face with a criminal who boasts at murdering hundreds of people?

He and his co-conspirators possibly hatched a plan that would give them the justification to advance anti-gun legislation, and therefore advance another step in the disarming of U.S. citizens, but the plan obviously back-fired. Indeed, I would venture to wager that Holder and Co. were out-gunned, out-maneuvered, and out-witted by criminals far more cunning and vicious than the erstwhile cops, who hoped to “sting,” them by “planting the goods” on them, “bring them to justice” and “use” them to advance their anti-gun agenda. And while that is but sheer speculation and conjecture, whatever their motives were, Holder and cohorts have been left holding a bag of calamities that has blown up in their collective faces.

It is leaders who pretend greatness and who pretend to wield power they do not have, that endanger the brave agents and soldiers that protect our nation, and when those pretended leaders fail their troops and the very people they have sworn to protect, if they do not abdicate of their own accord, it is up to the citizenry to step up to the plate and remove them. Today one way to do that is by signing a petition that declares exactly that.

Letters, emails, faxes, to your Congress men and women sent en masse, again and again will do the trick also.

For an extensive look at Operation Fast and Furious, there is a Web Site by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called “Operation Fast and Furious.” 

The site contains updates, reports, key documents and videos regarding Fast and Furious.

Van Guard