Lawmakers Push to Impeach Disgraced Attorney General Holder
http://www.thenewamerican.com/ ^ | November 9, 2013 | Alex Newman
Posted on Sunday, November 10, 2013 8:05:54 PM by Whenifhow
After having already been held in criminal contempt of Congress for an
ongoing cover-up of the Obama administration's deadly "Fast and Furious"
gun-running program, disgraced Attorney General Eric Holder is facing a fresh
challenge: an effort by some GOP lawmakers to impeach him before the end of
the year. According to media reports, the bid to force Holder out of power,
if successful, would represent the second impeachment of a cabinet member in
American history. Meanwhile, the movement to impeach Obama himself is growing
stronger by the day as well - both in Congress and among everyday Americans.
News that a group of Republicans was finally planning to do something about
Holder's lawlessness and defiance was first unveiled during a town-hall
meeting by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), a liberty-minded freshman in Congress who
worked as a veterinarian before taking office. "It's to get him out of
office - impeachment," Yoho was quoted as saying about the plan in local
newspapers, which reported that the audience also applauded the lawmaker's
positions on a number of other issues such as opposition to ObamaCare and the
wild federal deficit.
A formal resolution to impeach Holder is already being drawn up, sources on
Capitol Hill said. "It will probably be when we get back in [Washington],"
Yoho continued during the town-hall session with constituents in the town of
Chiefland. "It will be before the end of the year. This will go to the
speaker and the speaker will decide if it comes up or not." While it was not
immediately clear which other lawmakers were behind the effort, the list of
outraged lawmakers is vast. By July, over 135 congressmen had co-sponsored a
resolution calling on Holder to resign immediately. Public fury continues to
grow, too.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who introduced the no-confidence resolution,
summarized a few of the reasons in a speech on the House floor. "Mr. Holder's
violations of the law are egregious and he should not be immune from the
prosecution or given license to act without restraint," Gosar explained. "An
ordinary citizen would go to jail for selling guns to Mexican drug cartels.
An ordinary citizen would go to jail for secretly obtaining phone records and
emails. An ordinary citizen would go to jail for lying to Congress about an
investigation. What would happen to an ordinary citizen for lying to a judge?
This is just a small part of what Attorney General Eric Holder is responsible
for."
According to Rep. Yoho's chief of staff, Cat Cammack, the Florida Republican
and his colleagues are pursuing impeachment because of a variety of
scandals - primarily the administration's "Fast and Furious" scheme to arm
Mexican drug lords, which left hundreds dead, including U.S. law enforcement
officers. "Obviously there is a lot of frustration with our attorney
general," Cammack said. "You can name the botched programs. Fast and Furious
has been one of the number one complaints we get in our office, and why no
one has been held accountable."
So far, Holder has managed to escape prosecution after being held in contempt
only because the Justice Department he leads refuses to prosecute its boss.
However, without a pardon from Obama, more than a few legal experts and
activists have said the disgraced official could eventually end up behind
bars. If House Republicans are to succeed in impeaching Holder by the end of
the year, however, they are going to have to act quickly. According to news
reports, there are only 16 legislative days scheduled for the remainder of
2013.
A lot will depend on House Speaker John Boehner, too, who has remained silent
on the matter thus far. Despite occasional conservative rhetoric, the top
Republican in Washington has come under heavy fire from grassroots leaders
for continually selling out, caving in, and protecting the Obama
administration from accountability. The most recent example came just last
month, when Rep. Boehner capitulated completely to the president's extortion
tactics by agreeing to fund ObamaCare - even though polls showed a majority
of Americans supported partially shutting down the government until the
healthcare takeover was defunded.
Holder "should be immediately impeached," noted the Capitalism Institute,
citing Fast and Furious, the targeting of journalists who challenge Obama,
and the fact that the attorney general has "constantly trampled" on the
Constitution. One of the biggest challenges, though, will be getting it past
Speaker Boehner. "We've constantly said that John Boehner has to go, and this
is a good example of why that's still the case," continued the popular
market-oriented group. "Boehner is in a position where he can pretend to
fight Obama most of the time - but defend him whenever it actually counts."
While public pressure to oust the disgraced Justice Department boss has been
escalating for years, successfully impeaching Holder would be historic. In
more than two centuries of American history, only one U.S. cabinet-level
official has been impeached: Secretary of War William Belknap in the Ulysses
S. Grant administration. In 1876, after Belknap was accused of receiving
bribes, the House voted to impeach him. The vote took place despite the fact
that the war secretary had resigned earlier the same day. After Belknap's
impeachment, the Senate tried him, but he was acquitted when the vote to
convict fell short of the required two-thirds majority.
Led mostly by Republican congressmen, the effort to hold Obama's attorney
general accountable has been building up for years. Even before he took
office, scandal had long been swirling around Holder, who was caught on video
proposing a tax-funded propaganda program to "brainwash," in his words, the
American public against gun rights. He also played a key role in securing
presidential pardons for billionaire fugitive Marc Rich and Marxist
terrorists with the Obama-linked Weather Underground. Immediately upon his
assuming control of the Justice Department, new controversies began blowing
up, and a seemingly never-ending series of increasingly serious scandals have
plagued his controversial tenure ever since.
The turning point for members of Congress on both sides of the aisle,
however, appears to have come when Holder unlawfully defied a congressional
subpoena ordering him to hand over documents on Fast and Furious. That
federal program, which is still often characterized inaccurately in the
establishment press as a "botched" investigation, put thousands of
high-powered American weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Holder
and his underlings were also caught lying about the scheme repeatedly in
congressional hearings - while under oath, potentially committing perjury -
and in letters to lawmakers.
Official documents later revealed that the supposed "drug lords" being
"investigated" were already on the FBI's payroll. Government records also
emerged showing that the administration was plotting to use the Fast and
Furious violence to intensify its attack on the unalienable right to keep and
bear arms guaranteed under the Second Amendment. Eventually, with public
outrage boiling over and U.S. law enforcement officers murdered with some of
the weapons in question, House Republicans and even some Democrats decided to
hold the attorney general in criminal contempt of Congress last summer. The
offense should land the perpetrator behind bars.
Despite becoming the first attorney general in U.S. history to hold the
dubious honor, Holder has been clinging to power with the president's
support, and even stepping up the lawlessness. Incredibly, earlier this year,
the Justice Department he leads was exposed arguing that Obama has the
authority to kill Americans without even a semblance of due process. He has
also been unlawfully bullying state governments on everything from guns to
voter ID. According to the non-partisan group Judicial Watch, Holder is
actually among the most corrupt officials in Washington, D.C. - and there
were, of course, plenty to choose from.
More recently, even the administration's traditional allies in the
establishment media were outraged to learn that the attorney general had
approved unconstitutional spying against Associated Press journalists. "There
can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the
telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," noted AP
President Gary Pruitt. In an affidavit indicting a federal employee for
talking to reporters, meanwhile, Holder's out-of-control Justice Department
claimed a Fox News journalist was a "co-conspirator" in the case -
potentially setting him up for prosecution merely for doing his
constitutionally protected job.
While impeaching Holder has taken center stage for the moment, the push to
impeach Obama is accelerating, too. From highway overpasses to the halls of
Congress, countless activists and over a dozen U.S. lawmakers are turning up
the heat, having become convinced that ousting the president may be the only
remaining option to stop the reign of lawlessness and the never-ending parade
of constitutional abuses. Numerous impeachable offenses have been cited by
lawmakers and legal experts.
Recent polls suggested that about half of Americans would support impeachment
for some of the most extreme scandals - Benghazi, spying on journalists, and
using the IRS to persecute conservatives. Meanwhile, the new book Impeachable
Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama From Office is being distributed
on Capitol Hill by Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas). Some lawmakers have said
publicly that there are probably enough votes in the House to impeach Obama
already. Whether the president or his attorney general is removed from power,
though, still depends on how much more the American people are willing to
tolerate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
2A is the right to shoot tyrants, not deer.