Maybe Issa wants Lanny Breuer's scalp to cover up what went on during GWB's term...
Issa Committee Called for Justice Department Scalp
Jun 22, 2012 11:51 AM EDT
Talks broke down, and a House committee voted to cite Eric Holder for contempt. Daniel Klaidman reports exclusively on the scalp Issa’s team wants.
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From the start, Issa has invoked the death of Brian Terry, the Border Patrol agent who was killed in December 2010. The investigation, he said, would ferret out government responsibility for the tragedy. The case quickly became a cause celebre for conservatives, flogged in the right-wing media and all but ignored by the mainstream press. Holder, already a lightening rod to the base of the Republican party because of his association with some of the administration's most liberal policies, was a ready target.
But for Issa, a partisan warrior who has called Holder a "liar" and the Obama administration one of "the most corrupt" in history, there was always the risk of overreach. When he started to go down the road toward a contempt citation, the House Republican leadership began to show signs of nervousness. Some thought Issa needed to leave himself an escape route. In recent weeks he and his staff began negotiating with DOJ, looking for a way to head off the looming confrontation.
During a phone call last week with a senior Justice official, Issa's chief investigative counsel, Stephen Castor, broached a possible settlement. As the conversation began, according to two sources familiar with the conversation, Castor asked the official where things stood on "accountability." By that, Castor meant would any heads roll at Justice.
Castor mentioned Lanny Breuer, the head of the department's Criminal Division,
whom Republicans had been gunning for because of his knowledge of gun-walking techniques that had been used during the Bush administration. (Their theory was that Breuer should have taken aggressive steps to ensure that such measures were not repeated in future operations.)
According to these sources, Castor said that if Breuer resigned, they could head off the looming constitutional clash.
But the Justice official, Steven Reich, an associate deputy attorney general involved in the Fast and Furious negotiations with Congress, rejected the offer, calling it a "non-starter."
Still, Castor’s gambit was seen by DOJ officials as evidence that Issa was more interested in drawing blood than getting to the truth.
"The reason that this contempt motion happened is that Issa didn't come up with any evidence and didn't get a scalp," says Matthew Miller, a close associate of Holder's and his former communications director. "When you set expectations that high and you don't deliver, you have to explain why."
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