The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued statement last night saying that the vote to find Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress was “necessary for justice to be served.”<\/p>\n
The full statement is below:<\/p>\n
BELLEVUE, WA \u2013 The historic 255-67 vote by the House of Representatives to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to provide documents relating to the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious was \u201cnecessary for justice to be served,\u201d the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.<\/p>\n
Holder repeatedly did not comply with a subpoena issued last October by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Instead, he successfully appealed to President Barack Obama to claim executive privilege at the last minute in an attempt to shield the documents from Congressional review.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the nation, the attorney general is not above the law,\u201d CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb declared. \u201cIt should not have come to this. Eric Holder should have complied with the subpoena. If he had cooperated fully with the Fast and Furious investigation from the outset, none of this would have been necessary and he knows it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only conceivable reason that Holder and the Obama administration do not want to turn these documents over,\u201d he said, \u201cis that they contain damning evidence of either incompetence or complicity, or both.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are disappointed, but not surprised,\u201d Gottlieb continued, \u201cthat Holder\u2019s Democrat cheerleaders tried to portray this as a witch hunt, and tried to blame the Bush administration, but their arguments do not wash. This is about the rule of law and finding the truth about a horribly mis-managed gun trafficking operation, the murder of an American Border Patrol agent and what appears to have been a cover-up by the Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
CCRKBA had urged gun owners to contact their congressional representatives in support of the contempt vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud,\u201d Gottlieb noted, \u201cof the 17 Democrats who joined the Republican majority on this vote. This was not about partisanship, but accountability and transparency. Fast and Furious has a body count, and so long as people provide cover to the attorney general, the blood is on their hands.\u201d<\/i> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n