The House Government and Oversight Reform Committee on Thursday filed a motion to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of court for failing to turn over non-privileged documents responsive to a committee subpoena on Operation Fast and Furious. The documents were due by Oct. 1:
“Should the Court determine that the Attorney General has violated that Order, the Court should impose on the Attorney General an appropriate penalty to coerce his compliance with the August 20 Order, including an escalating daily monetary fine against Eric H. Holder, Jr., to be paid by Mr. Holder out of his personal assets, converting to incarceration if the payment of daily monetary fines does not produce compliance within a reasonable period of time,” House Counsel Kerry Kircher and other lawyers wrote in the new motion.
Never starved for excuses, the Justice Department replied that it would hand over the documents by Nov. 3, which it says is the deadline the House committee agreed upon for all documents requested — not just those related to Fast and Furious.
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa took objection to this attitude:
“Attorney General Holder and his department have now failed to comply with a binding federal court order,” Issa said. “The attorney general and his department are acting as if the judge in the case has an obligation to modify her rulings with which they disagree, rather than they having the obligation to comply with those rulings. That is the arrogance that landed this case in court in the first place.”
Issa also disputed the relevance of his committee’s stated willingness to agree to an extension.
“Contrary to the counterfactual claims of the Justice Department, the House did not agree to any deadline extension absent a ruling from the judge and in fact has asked the judge to enforce her order,” the chairman said. “The American people can only continue to guess at what the attorney general and his department are hiding.”
Just another day at the Department of (in)Justice.