Eric Holder Throws a Hissy Fit [John E.]

Attorney General Eric Holder fired off a 5-page letter to congressional leaders yesterday. It was the healthy mix of whining, blame shifting, deliberate misrepresentations and bumbling incompetence we've come to expect from our fine Attorney General.

Senator Grassley has suggested that I was aware of Operation Fast and Furious from letters he provided to me on or about January 31, 2011 that were addressed to the former Acting Director of the ATF. However, those letters referred only to an ATF umbrella initiative on the Southwest Border that started under the prior Administration -- Project Gunrunner -- and not to Operation Fast and Furious.

So, Bush's fault?

Much has been made in the past few days about my congressional testimony earlier this year regarding Fast and Furious. My testimony was truthful and accurate and I have been consistent on this point throughout. I have no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it.

Eric, do you know who Sharyl Attkisson is? If not, you will.

I simply cannot sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who devote their lives to protecting our citizens be considered "accessories to murder." Such inflammatory rhetoric must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms.

Representative Paul Gosar shot back at Holder in an interview with the Daily Caller.

�It [Holder�s letter] is rhetoric. I think it�s funny that that�s the heat we take now when we�re in the focus of hearings and the focus of calls for his resignation,� Gosar told The Daily Caller. �[He says] �oooh, we want to sing Kumbayah and bring everybody together so that we can diffuse that.� It�s also interesting that he and leadership in the Justice Department didn�t really exercise that in Arizona by reaching out and really trying to work on issues � they just continue to dictate accordingly."

Darrell Issa had a good line on Hannity Friday night when he said he wanted "change we can believe in at the Justice Department."

I wrote yesterday about the "under the radar" comment made by Obama to Sarah Brady regarding gun control. Well, Holder's letter had a similar eyebrow-raising comment.

As I have said, the fact that even a single gun was not interdicted in this operation and found a way to Mexico is unacceptable. Equally unacceptable however, is the fact that too many in Congress are opposed to any discussion of fixing loopholes in the laws that facilitate the staggering flow of guns each year across our border to the South.

What's interesting, beyond the staggering level of hypocrisy, is that Holder knows there are people that already suspect this was more about the second amendment and gun control than it ever was about investigating illegal gun trafficking. For him to take this position publicly, in a letter to Congress leads me to believe this might end up being his primary defense of the program. The walls are starting to close in on him and maybe that's all he has left. If that's the case, expect a lot of mud-slinging. Eric Holder doesn't strike me as the type of person to willingly fall on the sword.

Unthinkable corruption executed with criminal incompetence.

posted by Guest Blogger at 11:28 AM

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