Topic: Boehner: Contempt vote on Holder will proceed
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Wed 06/27/12 02:29 PM
By Deirdre Walsh, Terry Frieden and Tom Cohen
CNN
12:49 PM EDT, Wed June 27, 2012

Washington (CNN) — The U.S. House will proceed with a vote Thursday on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for withholding documents involving the failed Fast and Furious weapons crackdown, Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday.

“We’re going to proceed,” Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters. “We’ve given them ample opportunity to reply.”

His comment came the day after House Republicans rejected another offer by the White House and Justice Department to turn over some documents sought by congressional investigators.

Administration and justice officials met Tuesday with senior aides to Boehner and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa to try to head off the House vote, which could bring the unprecedented contempt citation of a sitting attorney general.

A senior House Republican aide said the offer to let congressional investigators see some of the requested documents in return for dropping the contempt measure was insufficient.

According to a summary provided by a senior administration official and a Justice Department official familiar with the discussions, the Justice Department offered to give Congress access to some of the documents generated between February 4, 2011, when the Justice Department initially told Congress there was no inappropriate activity, and December 2, 2011, when it acknowledged the program was “fundamentally flawed.”

“We reached out and showed them a representative sample of the documents so they could see firsthand the types of communications in contention,” said the administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Read more: CNN.com