Boehner ramps up Holder row with claims of White House involvement

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/21/bohener-ramps-up-holder-row-white-house

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House Speaker John Boehner escalated the Fast and Furious row Thursday by claiming that Barack Obama's deployment of executive privilege power was an admission that the White House was involved in the alleged Mexican drug cartel arms cover-up.

Boehner, at a press conference in Congress, said up until Obama used the power there had been no inkling of White House involvement. Until then, the issue had been confined to the attorney-general Eric Holder and justice department, Boehner said.

"The American people deserve the truth about what happened in Fast and Furious," Boehner said. "The Terry family deserve answers about why their son was killed."

The Mexican cartel case, known as Fast and Furious, centres on the drugs operation known as Fast and Furious, in which US agents turned a blind eye to arms being smuggled across the Mexican border. The agents had set up the sting operation in the hope they could trace the smuggled guns to high-ranking traffickers linked to drugs cartels.

But agents from the bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives in Arizona, lost track of more than 1,000 weapons. Two of the weapons turned up at the scene of the killing of US border patrol agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

Republicans claim that Holder misled Congress by initially claiming he knew nothing about it, only to admit later documents showed he had been briefed about it.

Republicans issued a subpoena demanding more documents from the justice department but Obama exercised his executive privilege on Wednesday, just hours before the oversight committee vote, to block this.

The courts cannot overturn the executive privilege power.

Without access to the papers, it is difficult for Republicans or any judge considering the issue to move the story forward.

Boehner, however, did not join in calls for Holder to resign.

Earlier today, Florida senator Marco Rubio joined the growing Republican clamour calling for the resignation of Holder over the Fast and Furious issue.

Rubio, one of the rising stars of the Republican party and on the shortlist for Mitt Romney's vice-presidential running-mate, replied in the affirmative when asked by a reporter if he supported calls for Holder to go.

"I think we are at the point of no return," Rubio was reported as saying by the Daily Caller website.

The Republican-dominated House oversight committee voted 23-17 on Wednesday to recommend that Holder be held in contempt of Congress for failing to hand over department of justice documents relating to the operation. The whole House is scheduled to vote on the issue next week.

Holder is unlikely to resign. He has survived bigger rows, in particular over failed Guantanamo closure plans and over his retreat from a planned trial in New York of self-confessed 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

After the Republican-dominated House, as expected, votes next week to back the committee's recommendation to hold Holder in contempt, the issue will almost certainly disappear into the courts for months to come. The chances of a judge finding Holder in contempt are extremely slim.

Calling for the resignation of an attorney-general would normally be regarded as a major step for a serious politician, one that would risk them being categorised as a "rent-a-quote". But Rubio was not speaking in isolation, with several other Republican senators also calling on Holder to go, including Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn and members of the House such as Steve King, who is well to the right of the party and a prominent Tea Party supporter.

The Republicans claim Holder misled Congress when he initially denied knowledge of the operation and that he failed to act on a subpoena to hand over documents related to the case.

The scene is set for another protracted showdown between the White House and Congress. Since the Republicans won control of the House in November 2010, there has been almost continuous warfare between them and Obama, mainly over debt.