USA –-(Ammoland.com)-A spokesperson for the Department of Justice “downplayed” a complaint filed with the District of Columbia Bar asking for Attorney General Eric Holder to be investigated following being found in contempt of Congress, Fox News reported Thursday.
“These are specious claims that ignore the facts and can only be described as frivolous,” Tracy Schmaler asserted. “It appears to be a desperate attempt by some factions to drag out the destructive, political games that Americans are rightly fed up with.”
Legal reaction to the complaint was mixed, with Brian Darling of The Heritage Foundation “suggest[ing] the complaint is on solid ground,” and Georgetown Law School Professor Michael Frisch opining “Because this particular complaint is written as if the attorney general had already been convicted of a crime, I think it will likely be rejected on its face.”
“There are political games Americans are rightly fed up with,” responded Mike Vanderboegh, one of the co-signers of the Holder ethics complaint. “They’re coming from those who place shielding their positions of privilege above finding out the truth, and who are doing everything in their power to discourage an open investigation.”
“As for rejecting the complaint because of assumptions it makes, it’s unarguable that the Attorney General has been found in contempt of Congress. On that basis alone, the DC Bar has not just the authority, but the responsibility to conduct an investigation,” he said.
“I also take exception to the accusation that we’re desperate,” Vanderboegh laughed. “We’re having fun. It’s the Justice Department that’s desperate.”
Fox has been was one of only a few media outlets reporting on the misconduct/ethics investigation request first announced by Gun Rights Examiner and Vanderboegh’s Sipsey Street Irregulars blog last week. Also reporting on this development were American Thinker, Sonoran News, HipHopWired, and Mediaite, with a mention in Jeff Knox’s WND.com column, as well as some predictable ad hominem tirades that did not attempt to address the merits of the complaint in Media Matters. In addition, the authors of the bar complaint, including this correspondent, were interviewed last night on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
Currently overshadowing the Holder complaint in the media by the sheer number of stories is an ethics charge leveled against House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chair Darrell Issa for posting wiretap affidavit information in the Congressional Record, filed by a self-designated “ethics” group headed by a longtime Democrat operative and a former House Judiciary Committee Minority Counsel working for John Conyers. Despite that being more properly described as specious due to Constitutional Speech or Debate protections, reports on the charge have been made in numerous media outlets, most of which have totally ignored the Holder bar request.
That may soon change. Gun Rights Examiner is pursuing leads on additional complaints that have or may be filed with the DC Bar and the New York Bar, where Holder is also licensed, noting both jurisdictions have also signed on to American Bar Association sanction standards. Additionally, as Vanderboegh predicted in last night’s Lou Dobbs interview based on information he is currently following up on, “Eric Holder has much more to worry about than our bar complaint.”
About David Codrea
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.
