PRESS RELEASE
52 Congressmen Now
Seek AG Holder's Resignation
Nov. 23, 2011 (EIRNS)—As of Nov. 20, fifty-two Republican Congressmen had called for the resignation of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as a result of Operation "Fast and Furious," in which over 2,000 assault weapons were allowed to "walk" into the hands of primarily the Mexican Sinaloa Drug Cartel. The program involved a task force of U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the FBI. At least two U.S. law enforcement officers, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jamie Zapata, have been killed with weapons traced to Fast and Furious, in addition to at least 200 Mexicans.
The top levels of the Department of Justice have consistently denied the very existence of such a program. In February, the DOJ sent a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) containing such a denial, but on Nov. 4, the head of the DOJ Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, admitted during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, that he knew that Operation Fast and Furious was a "gunwalking" policy, and that he was also aware that an earlier program under the Bush Administration, known as Operation Wide Receiver, used the same tactics.
Even after Breuer admitted that the DOJ had lied to Congress for over nine months, Holder refuses to take responsibility for the policy. In fact, he has refused numerous demands, including to fire Breuer, to provide documents subpoenaed by Congressional investigators, and to allow 11 of 12 DOJ officials requested by investigators to be interviewed—even at the risk of being cited for contempt of Congress.
The significance of these developments is best summed up by an individual called the "White House Insider," a high-level Democrat who is frequently interviewed in the Ulsterman blog. The Insider pointed out in an interview first published in August that
"Eric Holder is going down. It's happening. And like I've always told you, Holder is the Obama firewall. Holder is the stop-gap to everything. You head up the DOJ, you can pretty much stamp out 99% of anything coming at a president. Gunrunner is an operation that has gone into full government cover up at the highest levels. The highest levels. You got that? I told you months ago that 'we got them.'... The negotiations are currently underway for a special prosecutor ... there will be a gap between the protection Eric Holder provides now and the protection his replacement could provide. Information can then be uncovered that is currently tucked away behind the cloak of the Obama Department of Justice. When Holder is on his way out, the truth is gonna move in. We just need that window of opportunity to make it happen. It's gonna happen. Just give it a bit more time."
On Nov. 10, forty Republicans wrote a letter to President Obama demanding that he ask for Holder's resignation, and stressing that if he fails to do so, then he himself is complicit in the policy and its coverup.
In the case of Watergate, President Nixon was finally forced to resign as a result of his involvement in the coverup. That was after his Attorney General, John Mitchell, was removed from that office, thus eliminating Justice Department protection. If Holder is forced to resign, Obama himself will very rapidly be in the same vulnerable position enjoyed by Richard Nixon just prior to his resignation under threat of impeachment in 1974.
