Obama rejects calls for Eric Holder to resign
Aug 13, 2011 0:51:57 GMT -5
Post by PrisonerOfHope on Aug 13, 2011 0:51:57 GMT -5
Barack Obama rejects calls for Eric Holder to resign
President Barack Obama has forcefully rejected calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over a controversial federal law enforcement operation that allegedly allowed hundreds of guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels.
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) and the National Rifle Association have called for Holder's resignation over "Operation Fast and Furious," the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives investigation that monitored suspicious gun sales. Several of the weapons have been recovered from drug gangs in Mexico and two guns were found at the scene of the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent last December.
However, when asked at a roundtable with Spanish-language print media on Monday whether Holder should quit, Obama said flatly, "No."
"He was kind of uncomfortable with the question, I'd say," one of the journalists on hand, Antonieta Cadiz of La Opinion, said. (Read her story here, or the Google Translation into English here.)
Holder has ordered an Office of Inspector General probe into "Fast and Furious," which is also being investigated by Congress. The attorney general said last week that the practice of "gun-walking" allegedly involved in the ATF operation was "not an appropriate technique."
"That is not a technique that should ever be used," Holder told a news conference at the Justice Department.
www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0811/Barack_Obama_rejects_calls_for_Eric_Holder_to_resign.html
President Barack Obama has forcefully rejected calls for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over a controversial federal law enforcement operation that allegedly allowed hundreds of guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels.
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) and the National Rifle Association have called for Holder's resignation over "Operation Fast and Furious," the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives investigation that monitored suspicious gun sales. Several of the weapons have been recovered from drug gangs in Mexico and two guns were found at the scene of the shooting death of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent last December.
However, when asked at a roundtable with Spanish-language print media on Monday whether Holder should quit, Obama said flatly, "No."
"He was kind of uncomfortable with the question, I'd say," one of the journalists on hand, Antonieta Cadiz of La Opinion, said. (Read her story here, or the Google Translation into English here.)
Holder has ordered an Office of Inspector General probe into "Fast and Furious," which is also being investigated by Congress. The attorney general said last week that the practice of "gun-walking" allegedly involved in the ATF operation was "not an appropriate technique."
"That is not a technique that should ever be used," Holder told a news conference at the Justice Department.
www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0811/Barack_Obama_rejects_calls_for_Eric_Holder_to_resign.html
