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Local Congressman Defends Attorney General, Cries Foul

Published on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 | 6:13 am
 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a former prosecutor, talked on MSNBC with Al Sharpton about the upcoming vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for the Fast and Furious operation yesterday.

After the broadcast, Schiff released the following statement:

“The Attorney General has made an unprecedented offer to turn over documents that are part of the Department of Justice’s internal deliberations and workproduct, and to brief the committee on their contents. Regrettably, Chairman Issa refuses to take yes for an answer.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that this was never about getting documents – and all about scoring political points in an election year. I admire the work Attorney General Holder has done running the Department of Justice, and regret to see these personal and political attacks. In the end, they only detract from the Department’s ability to do its job, and establish yet another precedent of  Congress’s subpoena power being abused for partisan purposes. I shudder to think about when the contempt power is truly justified – will anyone recognize it?”


Below is the transcript:

Rev. Sharpton: Congressman, do you think that Republicans will definitely go ahead with this contempt vote?

Congressman Schiff: I think they will. That’s been the game plan all along. I wish I could say otherwise but this looks like a completely political exercise. In the beginning, the committee was demanding grand jury materials, wiretap application materials the Justice Department was precluded from providing. They had to walk back from that. Now they are demanding information part of the deliberative process of the DOJ. They never turned over. But the Attorney General made an extraordinary offer to do that, to provide additional extensive materials and that — good faith offer appears has been rejected out of hand by the committee.

Rev. Sharpton: Let me walk through this slowly because I want to make sure that we all listening and myself included understand. The Justice Department has already handed over 140,000 documents. 7600 pages turned over. Eight hearings before congress. You said that they then requested things that the DOJ never hands over, has never handed over, and the Attorney General even said they were prepared to do that and even at that, they are saying no deal.

Congressman Schiff: Well that’s exactly right. you know, first they asked for materials that legally the AG’s office is not allowed to turn over. Then they narrowed the scope of what they asked for but still asked for materials that the Department of Justice, for good reason, hasn’t turned over historically. That is part of the work product of the office, internal memoranda of the office. But the Attorney General extraordinary steps said look, let’s not have a constitutional fight over this even though it is the Attorney General’s view that he is on solid constitutional ground. We will provide the materials that were not obligated to, historically we have not provided. Let’s sit down and work this out. I think the problem here is that the committee doesn’t really want to work this out. That the conservative base is demanding continuing political attacks on the administration and founded profitable to go after the attorney general if he reach an accommodation with the attorney general, then that, I think, is disappointing to some of the conservatives.

Rev. Sharpton: Very interesting, Congressman. You feel that the base of the party is so extreme now that Issa no matter what the Attorney General says, Issa has to go forward to keep his base with him?

Congressman Schiff: I think that’s unfortunately true. I don’t know at this point whether Darrell Issa could walk back even if he wanted to. In fact, that dime may have been cast weeks ago. It is unfortunate because it puts the legislative branch which has an important oversight function with corroboration with the legislation for no good reason except the politics of the moment. We ought to be thinking beyond this moment. We ought to be thinking about what this does to the future relationship between the two branches of government and how the subpoena power is used and how it is abused. But, unfortunately, here I think it has become completely political exercise.

Rev. Sharpton: What does it mean in layman’s term that if the Attorney General of the United States is held in contempt? What happens? How serious is that? What happens to the Attorney General?

Congressman Schiff: Well, you know, committee will vote on the contempt citation. Then go to the house floor. Since the House floor is controlled by Republicans, presumably passes there and becomes a court fight which won’t be decided any time in the next several months. So plainly, if the committee wanted to get the documents and wanted to get them in a timely way, the Attorney General offered to provide them but it is not about getting documents. It is about getting the political fight at this point. And, unfortunately, I think the GOP committee would rather have the fight than the documents. That seems to be the path we are head order.

Rev. Sharpton: You are telling me if they hold him in contempt, it goes to the House where the majority, they go ahead and hold him in contempt and this becomes a court process that will take months when they could get the documents now since the Attorney General has offered this so they are really trying to go through a campaign season of being able to say the Attorney General is in contempt. They are really not trying to get the documents on fast street and furious in your judgment.

Congressman Schiff: I think it is really clear. Look at the history of the investigation, of course as you pointed out, the — gun walking tragic ill-conceived idea of gun walking began under the Bush Administration. But whenever witnesses in the hearings try to talk about the origins of the program which were shut down by this Attorney General, by our Attorney General, the committee didn’t want to hear that testimony. They didn’t want to look at beyond where — this administration where the origins of the program began. It has been clear all along that the focus was trying to score political points against the AG and against the President. And also, it has been clear, unfortunately, this is the greatest strategy of all that there has been no interest in the committee and no interest in the house and in trying to make progress on the very issue this is all about which is the massive numbers of American-made weapons going into Mexico fueling the drugs wars down there. When we engage in political circus instead it is a real disservice to our country and disservice on our neighbors to the south as well.

Rev. Sharpton: Congressman Schiff, thank you for your time tonight.

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