GOP freshman presses for ‘no confidence’ bill against AG Holder

A Republican freshman is pressing Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to move on his resolution expressing a lack of confidence in Attorney General Eric Holder.
 
The measure was put forward by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and has languished in the Judiciary Committee for the past nine months, while many of its 114 GOP cosponsors — many of whom are freshman — patiently waited.
 
{mosads}Republican leaders — with Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) heading the effort — have spent most of this year building support for a contempt of Congress measure against Holder that they passed in June for not complying to a subpoena Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued.
 
But now, nearly three months later, Gosar is pushing Smith to move on his resolution, saying that the tide has turned on Holder and the time is ripe for the chamber to formally object to the way the attorney general has handled the fallout of “Fast and Furious,” the botched gun tracking operation that oversaw the sale of nearly 2,000 firearms to known straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels and may have contributed to the death of a Border Patrol agent.
 
“Despite having been held in contempt of Congress and currently facing a federal lawsuit, Attorney General Holder continues to believe that he is above the law,” said Gosar in a statement, accompanying his letter to Smith.
 
“Congress and the public have demanded for over a year answers and accountability from the Attorney General, yet received neither. Let us move forward with my resolution to let the Attorney General know that the American people have lost their faith in him for good reason, and it is time for him to go.”
 
In March, when asked about whether he was planning to bring the resolution up in his committee, Smith told The Hill it was not likely to move forward unless House leadership gave him the green light.

The Justice Department’s inspector general has been investigating “Fast and Furious” for the past 18 months and is expected to issue its highly anticipated report next week.