Eric Holder, Contempt & Race

Image by VinothChandar via Flickr

Overshadowed by the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act was a historic action taken by the U.S. House of Representatives. For the first time ever, one of the legislative branch’s two chambers voted to hold a member of a President’s cabinet—Attorney General Eric Holder—in contempt of Congress.

The reasons given by the Republican-controlled Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for holding the Attorney General in contempt are questionable at best – the refusal to supply documents subpoenaed by the committe. The Justice Department has argued, to no avail, that the specific documents requested contain:

• internal deliberations
• information involving ongoing investigations

and therefor canNOT be shared with the Committee.  Also, the request for these documents is to hopefully uncover a conspiracy the Committee already has ample evidence that it DOESN’T exist.

There’s a reason that Holder is, next to the President himself, the member of the Obama Administration that the right most loves to hate. It’s not necessarily racism—not stemming, that is, from a belief that Holder is somehow inferior or ill-willed because he’s black—but that doesn’t mean it’s not about race.