Civil rights group asks Issa not to hold Eric Holder in contempt

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The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has sent a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) urging him not to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in the investigation of the controversial “Fast and Furious” gun-trafficking operation.

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“We are deeply troubled by the prospect that the Attorney General will be cited for contempt by your committee, and believe that such action is unwarranted. We urge you to reconsider that decision,” the group says in the letter, which was released on Monday. It adds, “To put it simply, the attempt to cite General Holder for contempt seems to be a rush to judgment intended to create a stain on the office of the Attorney General.”

Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has said Holder has not released enough pages of documents about the operation to the committee, a claim DOJ strongly disputes. A Department official told the Washington Post last week it had not released some information to Issa’s committee because “it would politicize and/or jeopardize ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions.”

But Issa threatened last week to hold Holder in contempt, and other Republicans on the committee are likely to support him in this effort, which committee Democrats oppose. The chairman has not yet set the date for any kind of vote.