1:08 pm Jun. 28, 2012
Democrats in Congress just voted unanimously to support a planned walk-out by the Congressional Black Caucus this afternoon, when the House considers whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, according to a source in Washington.
The contempt vote comes as the House Oversight Committee demands documents detailing the internal deliberations over the fallout from the Fast and Furious operation, in which federal agents failed to stop guns from being acquired by Mexican drug cartels, in an effort to track the firearms and gain intelligence about the cartels.
Holder has attempted to negotiate the release of some of those documents, but not to the satisfaction of Oversight chair, Darrell Issa, who has pushed for the contempt vote.
The unanimous vote comes even as some Democrats have publicly pledged their support to the vote, which the National Rifle Association plans to track for its annual scorecard.
Among the C.B.C.'s New York members are Charlie Rangel, Greg Meeks, Yvette Clarke and Ed Towns.
Towns, who previously chaired the Oversight committee, brought Issa to Brooklyn for a field hearing on foreclosures in March, an appearance that was greeted by plenty of protesters. Bertha Lewis, whose ACORN organization was dismantled in part due to pressure from Issa, called him a "political necrophiliac."
