If you could choose how to spend the night before vote to hold you in contempt of Congress, would you go to a barbecue with the people who hold your fate in their hands? Eric Holder must really like hot dogs.
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Yes, Attorney General Eric Holder spent the night before his contempt vote mingling with the rest of Congress, including the GOP, at a barbecue for their families on the White House grounds. "Oh, to be a fly on the picnic table..." Politico says. A vote is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon when everyone Holder spoke with at the barbecue (excluding husbands, wives and kids) will vote on whether or not Holder will is guilty of contempt of congress.
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The President's opening remarks at the barbecue didn't offer anything juicy, unfortunately. There are no veiled shots at Mitt, no allusions to the contempt vote, or signs of nervousness over the impending SCOTUS decision. He thank everyone for coming, offered to kiss people while posing for pictures, unless they're unshaven. He doesn't like that.
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But, earlier on Wednesday, Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said his office doesn't have any evidence Eric Holder knew of the Fast & Furious program's gun-walking tactics. "During the inception and the participation through the death of Brian Terry, we have no evidence nor do we currently have strong suspicion" that Holder knew of the gun-walking, Issa testified to the House Rules committee. "We have just the opposite, have a number of people, including Lanny Breuer, who should have known who’s responsibility was to know, that as part of our ongoing responsibility to figure out who was responsible," he continued.
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"We are now about to find in contempt the attorney general of the United States of America after you just heard that," interrupted Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and Holder's biggest public defender in this mess.
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"Sure," replied Issa. "It’s not for what the attorney general knew about Fast and Furious, it’s about the attorney general’s refusal to provide the documents." Glad we got that cleared up.
House Democrats uploaded video of Issa's remarks to Youtube (via TPM):