The GOP controlled House is took the unprecedented step in voting to hold the Attorney General of the United States in contempt of Congress.

Led by an actual criminal, Darryl Issa, this is nothing but a political witch hunt. They can’t get the President, so they’re going after the Attorney General.

Fast and Furious was started in the BUSH Administration.

YES, the BUSH Administration.

This was never about finding out the truth about what happened. If it was, then Issa would have interviewed people from the BUSH Administration in his hearings.

This was about attacking the President of the United States, and, since they can’t get at him, any Black man will do. Especially a Black man like the Attorney General, who has repeatedly stood up to them, and is rebuilding the DOJ, particularly the Civil Rights Division. Nancy Pelosi had it nailed when she said that this was about the AG standing up for voting rights and fighting GOP Voter Suppression.

Plus, he’s Black…don’t ya know.

While some gutless, afraid of their shadow Democrats joined the Republicans:
Jason Altmire (Pa.)
John Barrow (Ga.)
Dan Boren (Okla.)
Leonard Boswell (Iowa)
Ben Chandler (Ky.)
Mark Critz (Pa.)
Joe Donnelly (Ind.)
Kathy Hochul (N.Y.)
Ron Kind (Wis.)
Larry Kissell (N.C.)
Jim Matheson (Utah)
Mike McIntyre (N.C.)
Bill Owens (N.Y.)
Collin Peterson (Minn.)
Nick Rahall (W. Va.)
Mike Ross (Ark.)
Tim Walz (Minn.)

Yeah, this means you, you punk ass summabitches…

Other Democrats said, HELL NO, we’re not going to participate in this FARCE, and they walked out of the Halls of Congress.

Attorney General Eric Holder responds to Republican contempt vote

Pelosi encourages Democrats to walk out on Holder contempt vote – June 28, 2012

The Attorney General’s Statement

Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder on the U.S. House of Representatives Vote

Attorney General Eric Holder issued the following statement today:

“Today’s vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided – and politically motivated – investigation during an election year. By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety. Instead of trying to correct the problems that led to a series of flawed law enforcement operations, and instead of helping us find ways to better protect the brave law enforcement officers, like Agent Brian Terry, who keep us safe – they have led us to this unnecessary and unwarranted outcome.

“During this time, the men and women of the Department of Justice – and I – have remained focused on what should and must be our government’s top priority: protecting the American people.

“When concerns about Operation Fast and Furious first came to light, I took action – and ordered an independent investigation into what happened. We learned that the flawed tactics used in this operation began in the previous administration – but I made sure that they ended under this one. I also made sure that agents and prosecutors around the country knew that such tactics must never be used again. I put in place new policies, new safeguards, and new leadership to make certain of this – and took extraordinary steps to facilitate robust congressional oversight. Let me be very clear – that was my response to Operation Fast and Furious. Any suggestion to the contrary simply ignores the facts.

“I had hoped that Congressional leaders would be good-faith partners in this work. Some have. Others, however, have devoted their time and attention to making reckless charges – unsupported by fact – and to advancing truly absurd conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, these same members of Congress were nowhere to be found when the Justice Department and others invited them to help look for real solutions to the terrible problem of violence on both sides of our Southwest Border. That’s tragic, and it’s irresponsible. The problem of drugs and weapons trafficking across this border is a real and significant public safety threat – and it deserves the attention of every leader in Washington.

“In the face of these and other challenges, the Justice Department has continued to move forward in fulfilling its critical law enforcement responsibilities. Whether it is with regard to prosecuting financial and health care fraud, achieving a record mortgage settlement, taking aggressive action in protecting the most vulnerable among us, or challenging proposed voting changes and redistricting maps that could disenfranchise millions of voters – this Department of Justice has not been afraid to act.

“Some of these enforcement decisions were not politically popular and help to explain the action taken today by the House. As Attorney General, I do not look to do that which is politically expedient – on behalf of the American people whom I am privileged to serve, I seek justice.

“In recent weeks, the Justice Department secured its seventh conviction in the most serious terrorist plot our nation has faced since 9/11. And just two days ago, the Department awarded more than $100 million in grants to save or create law enforcement jobs, including more than 600 jobs for recent veterans.

“This is the kind of work that leaders in Washington should be striving together to advance. At a time when so many Americans are in need of our help, I refuse to be deterred from it. And I will not let election-year politics and gamesmanship stand in the way of continued progress.

“Today’s vote may make for good political theater in the minds of some, but it is – at base – both a crass effort and a grave disservice to the American people. They expect – and deserve – far better.

“As a result of the action taken today by the House, an unnecessary court conflict will ensue. My efforts to resolve this matter short of such a battle were rebuffed by Congressman Issa and his supporters. It’s clear that they were not interested in bringing an end to this dispute or obtaining the information they claimed to seek. Ultimately, their goal was the vote that – with the help of special interests – they now have engineered.

“Whatever the path that this matter will now follow, it will not distract me or the men and women of the Department of Justice from the important tasks that are our responsibility. A great deal of work for the American people remains to be done – I’m getting back to it. I suggest that those who orchestrated today’s vote do the same.”

Fortune Magazine published a long article following their investigation of Fast and Furious.

Here is part of it:

The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal
June 27, 2012: 5:00 AM ET

A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.

By Katherine Eban

In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth’s ranked high. In 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted Voth to lead Phoenix Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico’s vicious drug war.

Some call it the “parade of ants”; others the “river of iron.” The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws. For six years, due to Beltway politics, the bureau has gone without permanent leadership, neutered in its fight for funding and authority. The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the ATF’s congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one.

Voth, 39, was a good choice for a Sisyphean task. Strapping and sandy-haired, the former Marine is cool-headed and punctilious to a fault. In 2009 the ATF named him outstanding law-enforcement employee of the year for dismantling two violent street gangs in Minneapolis. He was the “hardest working federal agent I’ve come across,” says John Biederman, a sergeant with the Minneapolis Police Department. But as Voth left to become the group supervisor of Phoenix Group VII, a friend warned him: “You’re destined to fail.”

Voth’s mandate was to stop gun traffickers in Arizona, the state ranked by the gun-control advocacy group Legal Community Against Violence as having the nation’s “weakest gun violence prevention laws.” Just 200 miles from Mexico, which prohibits gun sales, the Phoenix area is home to 853 federally licensed firearms dealers. Billboards advertise volume discounts for multiple purchases.

Customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in Arizona as long as they’re 18 or older and pass a criminal background check. There are no waiting periods and no need for permits, and buyers are allowed to resell the guns. “In Arizona,” says Voth, “someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich.”

By 2009 the Sinaloa drug cartel had made Phoenix its gun supermarket and recruited young Americans as its designated shoppers or straw purchasers. Voth and his agents began investigating a group of buyers, some not even old enough to buy beer, whose members were plunking down as much as $20,000 in cash to purchase up to 20 semiautomatics at a time, and then delivering the weapons to others.