Rep. Trey Gowdy was in fine form this morning at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s business meeting to discuss the contempt citation for Attorney General Eric Holder. His summation of the case against Holder was excellent and was forceful.
You knew it was going to be good when you saw the slight glimmer of a smile on Chairman Darrell Issa’s face when he recognized Gowdy.
One of the more memorable parts of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting today was this from Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) where he took the Democrats’s call for bringing in officials from the Bush Administration and ran with it.
The Drudge Report has this mash-up on their home page regarding the Obama Administration’s invoking executive privilege.
It should be remembered that while two Federal LEOs and an estimated died as a result of Operation Fast and Furious that no one died as a result of Watergate.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has responded forcefully to the White House’s claim of executive privilege for the documents involved in Operation Fast and Furious. He says it now raises even more questions.
Senator Chuck Grassley made the following comment about the President’s action today claiming executive privilege in response to congressional oversight of the government’s Fast and Furious gun-walking program. The congressional investigation began with Senator Grassley’s inquiry into whistleblower allegations that the government had allowed the transfer of illegally purchased weapons found at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The Department of Justice denied the allegations to Senator Grassley for 10 months before being forced to withdraw its denial in face of evidence to the contrary.
Grassley comment:
“The assertion of executive privilege raises monumental questions. How can the President assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the President exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances. The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it’s never repeated again.”
In a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Chris Cox of the NRA-ILA indicated that the NRA will be using the vote on the contempt citation for Eric Holder to evaluate candidates. They also said that they support the contempt citation for Holder.
The American people – including millions of NRA members and tens of millions of NRA supporters – deserve the truth about these issues, and we will support any effort that leads us to that truth. This is an issue of utmost seriousness and the NRA will consider this vote in future candidate evaluations.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was interviewed by Greta van Sustern of FoxNews about the abortive meeting with Eric Holder yesterday. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be meeting in a few minutes to consider a contempt citation for Holder.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
The New York State Assembly passed A.1157-B – the microstamping law – today by a vote of 79 to 52. If passed by the State Senate it will go into effect in 2014. While they contend the cost to firearms manufacturers of the implementing microstamping will be minimal, industry sources disagree strongly.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D) released this statement on its passage.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel, and Codes Committee Chair Joseph Lentol today announced passage of the Crime Gun Identification Act of 2012 that would require all new semiautomatic handguns sold in New York State, by 2014, to be microstamped with a unique code which is transferred to shell casings when the gun is fired.
“Microstamping is a technological advancement that will not only help law enforcement officials investigate gun-related crimes, but will also act as a prevention tool to combat gun trafficking and reduce gun violence across New York,” said Silver. “Gun violence has caused great harm to many in our communities. This legislation would help law enforcement to bring the perpetrators of these violent crimes to justice and offer some measure of closure to the victims of these heinous acts. I commend Assemblywoman Schimel for championing this effort and all my colleagues for supporting this important public safety measure.”
Microstamping ensures that when a gun is fired, information identifying the make, model and serial number of the gun is stamped onto the cartridge as numbers and letters. This technology allows law enforcement to trace firearms through shell casings found at crime scenes, even if the gun is never found. This crime-fighting tool will provide law enforcement with rapid leads at crime scenes and will provide evidence to help investigate, arrest, and convict more criminals of gun-related offenses.Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel, sponsor of the measure (A.1157-B), said, “This is the fifth year that I have sponsored and debated microstamping legislation, which has passed our house each year. In this session, the Assembly included a microstamping measure in our budget proposal, but regretfully, it was not included in the final state budget. As we wait for the state Senate to act on this bill, brave law enforcement officers are being struck down by gun fire and innocent victims continue to be wantonly murdered. We can’t catch their killers because they fire anonymous bullets. I urge the state Senate to put the public’s safety above the interests of extremists in the gun lobby and pass this important crime-fighting measure.”
“This legislation will prove invaluable,” said Lentol. “Not only will this bill help to bring closure to victims and survivors of gun violence, it will also deter illegal gun traffickers from supplying violent criminals with weapons. I strongly urge the state Senate to take action on this important measure.”
Silver and Schimel noted that this bill will not place any restrictions on lawful gun ownership or impair access to the lawful purchase of weapons. The certification process called for in the bill is entirely industry based. The manufacturers of semiautomatic handguns will incur minimal costs to adopt this technology.
The technology is unproven, it will be expensive for manufacturers to implement, and it can be easily defeated by either filing the firing pin or by scattering other cartridges at crime scenes. In other words, gun control advocates in the State Assembly have just passed a feel-good measure that will not have an impact on crime, will not track criminals, and will increase the cost of gun ownership. As to the last item, that is if firearms manufacturers even bother to sell semi-auto pistols in New York. This is probably the true goal – though unspoken – of the bill’s sponsors.
GunPoliticsNY has more here.
Attorney General Eric Holder met at 5pm today with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) along with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to discuss the production of certain documents related to Operation Fast and Furious in an attempt to stave off the vote on the contempt citation. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to vote on a contempt citation for Holder for failing to produce subpoenaed documents.
The only thing that could postpone or stop the vote on the contempt citation would be for Eric Holder to deliver a subset of the documents requested by the committee. As of the 5pm meeting, he hadn’t done that and indicated in the meeting that he wasn’t prepared to produce them.
The following is the statement from Chairman Issa on the meeting and the contempt vote.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa made the following statement after his meeting with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder:
“I had hoped that after this evening’s meeting I would be able to tell you that the Department had delivered documents that would justify the postponement of tomorrow’s vote on contempt. The Department told the Committee on Thursday that it had documents it could produce that would answer our questions. Today, the Attorney General informed us that the Department would not be producing those documents. The only offer they made involved us ending our investigation.
“While I still hope the Department will reconsider its decision so tomorrow’s vote can be postponed, after this meeting I cannot say that I am optimistic. At this point, we simply do not have the documents we have repeatedly said we need to justify the postponement of a contempt vote in committee.”
While Issa is still holding the door open for postponing the vote on contempt it appears to be closing fast. If his description of what Holder said is accurate – and there is no reason to believe it isn’t – then Holder just thumbed his nose at the Committee again. I think all that Holder accomplishes with his stonewalling is to unite the Committee’s Republicans.
UPDATE: Sen. Chuck Grassley didn’t think much of Eric Holder’s decision to continue withholding the documents.
“The Attorney General wants to trade a briefing and the promise of delivering some small, unspecified set of documents tomorrow for a free pass today. He wants to turn over only what he wants to turn over and not give us any information about what he’s not turning over. That’s unacceptable. I’m not going to buy a pig in a poke. Chairman Issa is right to move forward to seek answers about a disastrous government operation.”
While the North Carolina State Senate ponders (and ponders) HB 111 – the restaurant carry bill – another restaurant was robbed. Grass Roots North Carolina just sent out another alert about it last night.
They choose to block important legislation while restaurant patrons and employees
continue to be victimizedNews released on Friday, June 15, 2012 reports that several local and surrounding Fayetteville area restaurants have been hit in a string of robberies in the past 30 days. On Friday, surveillance video was released showing the suspects clearly wielding handguns during the most recent robbery at a Fayetteville Hardee’s Restaurant on June 1st.
Had this crime happened while you were having dinner with your family at your favorite restaurant, would state law have prevented you from legally protecting yourself and your family?
While criminals continue to ignore laws and endanger the lives of citizens in restaurants around the state in crimes conducted regularly, Senator Phil Berger and the Senate Republican leadership have intentionally blocked HB 111 for no other reason except cowardice. They have decided that Democrats might just say bad things about them during the upcoming election cycle if the bill is passed. Instead of honoring their promises to law-abiding gun owners who helped put them in power, they have decided that they are too busy to deal with the bill on the Senate floor in the form of a vote.
Enough is enough!
Accept no more attempts to dodge the issue by the Republican leadership in the Senate. They’ve passed the budget, they’ve worked hard in the current session and have announced that there is finally an official state “Livermush Festival”, and now they have run out of excuses. Now is the time for the Senate Republican leadership to lead as they have promised.
We do not have the luxury of waiting for politicians to decide our fate. We do not have the time to be brushed aside, hoping that HB 111 will be taken to the Senate floor for a vote at a later time. Republican leaders must know that they have run out of places to hide and must bring HB 111 out of the Finance Committee where it is being held hostage. This Bill must go to a full Senate floor vote NOW!
IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!
* CALL PRESIDENT PRO TEM PHIL BERGER (919.733.5708) & RULES CHAIR TOM APODACA (919.733.5745): Tell them to send HB 111 to the Senate floor IMMEDIATELY!
* EMAIL ALL SENATE REPUBLICANS using the copy-and-paste email list and message below to deliver either the pre-written message or your own.
* CALL YOUR STATE SENATOR, whom you can find by going to: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/representation/WhoRepresentsMe.html
* (Note: You will need your 9-digit zip, which can be found on your driver’s license.)
* HELP GRNC DEFEND GUN RIGHTS: We are now reaching over 60,000 gun owners with every alert (like this one). This costs $500 per alert – serious money. Please join or contribute by going to: https://ssl4.westserver.net/grnc.org/join.html!CONTACT INFO
Austin.Allran@ncleg.net, Tom.Apodaca@ncleg.net, Phil.Berger@ncleg.net, Stan.Bingham@ncleg.net, Harris.Blake@ncleg.net, Andrew.Brock@ncleg.net, Harry.Brown@ncleg.net, Peter.Brunstetter@ncleg.net, Chris.Carney@ncleg.net, Warren.Daniel@ncleg.net, Jim.Davis@ncleg.net, Don.East@ncleg.net, Thom.Goolsby@ncleg.net, Rick.Gunn@ncleg.net, Kathy.Harrington@ncleg.net, Fletcher.Hartsell@ncleg.net, Ralph.Hise@ncleg.net, Neal.Hunt@ncleg.net, Brent.Jackson@ncleg.net, Wesley.Meredith@ncleg.net, Buck.Newton@ncleg.net, Louis.Pate@ncleg.net, Jean.Preston@ncleg.net, Bill.Rabon@ncleg.net, David.Rouzer@ncleg.net, Bob.Rucho@ncleg.net, Dan.Soucek@ncleg.net, Richard.Stevens@ncleg.net, Jerry.Tillman@ncleg.net, Tommy.Tucker@ncleg.net, Wes.Westmoreland@ncleg.net
DELIVER THIS MESSAGE
Suggested Subject: “More restaurant robberies: Will it take another death for Republicans to act?”
Dear Senate Republican:
Each passing day brings us news of yet another robbery or vicious killing in one or more of North Carolina’s restaurants. While law-abiding, responsible gun owners are severely handicapped by state law in terms of protecting themselves, criminals continue to victimize patrons and employees of restaurants around the state at will.
You have promised me that you would support reasonable and common sense legislation that is designed to enhance my safety, and that of my family. HB 111 would do just that. Yet, you have chosen to delay the bill intentionally by sending it to the Senate Finance Committee where there is a good chance that it will die.
I urge you to reconsider this tactic and take HB 111 out of the Finance Committee and bring it to an immediate full vote on the Senate floor so it can then be moved closer to passage. Doing so will greatly enhance my ability to protect the lives of my family as well as my own.
I will be closely following your actions concerning HB 111 through the efforts of Grass Roots North Carolina, as well as keeping notes for the upcoming elections in November.
Sincerely,
UPDATE: The Winston-Salem Journal is reporting that two men robbed a Sonic drive-in yesterday evening in Winston-Salem. The time to pass HB 111 is now.
UPDATE II: The State Senate Finance Committee is meeting today. The agenda lists a number of bills for consideration. However, HB 111 is not one of them.
I think my view from the porch this week is a little different than Tam’s.
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