White Washing Eric Holder?

The Democratic Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy is planning to schedule an oversight hearing with Attorney General Eric Holder, CBS reported Friday. It's really great to see Leahy take an interest in Fast and Furious but it is odd that until that it wasn't until Eric Holder was all but accused of perjury that the Senator from Vermont found it worth investigating. Leahy makes the point that as a former prosecutor he sees the necessity of not interfering with the ongoing criminal investigations. The only criminal prosecutions in the case are the 20 straw purchasers, 19 of whom were released within one day after being arrested. Yeah, we sure wouldn't want to blow that case. Possibly Senator Leahy will want to wait until they've exhausted their final appeals before looking too hard at Fast and Furious. From the secret audio recording as posted on this blog we hear Andre Howard, owner of the Lone Wolf Trading Post say that Leahy had adjourned his investigation and has no plans to reconvene it and ATF agent Hope McAllister seems to think they have nothing more to fear from Leahy.

HOWARD: "He said basically the underlying case file. I said, 'Okay, who’d you release it to? F-----g [Sen.] Patrick Leahy!' Okay? Wasn’t just [Sen. Chuck] Grassley, it was Leahy, alright? Leahy, as we both know, has adjourned this inquiry right now, okay, with no plans to reconvene it. So your people were successful to that end."

McALLISTER: "Right."

HOWARD: "Obviously that’s good. However these idiots from …"

McALLISTER: "… The House?"

HOWARD: "Yeah, and that I don’t know. What is troublesome with this [is] I expected Rep.’s Darrell Issa's signature to be on this [but] it wasn’t. He’s your biggest thorn. He hates Holder."

"So your people were successful to that end." Ok that's supposition on Howard's part but McAllister agrees. This suggests that ATF and DOJ insiders had some pull with Leahy and now when Holder is trying to fight off calls for special prosecutor to investigate him Leahy reconvenes his committee hearings expressing concern about damaging the case against some low level felons. No. Leahy is there to protect Holder; not to investigate him. Call it senatorial subterfuge.