House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) issued this statement on the vote to Holder Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress:
“What we just witnessed was an extreme, virtually unprecedented action based on election year politics rather than fact,” said Cummings. “Even in the face of an assertion of executive privilege, the Republicans didn’t even pause to consider the law and instead decided to take this extreme step.
“The House has never held an Attorney General in contempt, and the only precedent for what this Committee did today was in the 1990s when then-Chairman Burton held Janet Reno in contempt. It was so extreme that even then-Speaker Newt Gingrich refused to bring it the floor for a vote. If Speaker Boehner brings this contempt citation to the floor, he will be known as one of the most extreme Speakers in history.”
As TPM previously reported, Boehner previously opposed a contempt vote because the DOJ Inspector General had not completed its investigation. An IG report on Fast and Furious is still pending.
