ambassadors, and public ministers, and the pardoning power. i claim not to be a constitutional scholar but the house is currently working to find out what assertions may in fact arrive and we will take notice of them. having said that, more than eight months after a subpoena and clearly after the question of executive privilege could have and should have been asserted, this untimely assertion by the justice department falls short of any reason to delay today's proceedings. we have made many attempts to accommodate the justice department. originally some 22 areas were on our subpoena, many of which were never complied with. we narrowed three master areas to two in a letter on may 18th.

unprecedented letter from the speaker of the house asking for cooperation and narrowing the scope of the subpoena. since that time, we have further narrowed to one area for purposes of contempt and we have been denied. the attorney general has refused to cooperate, offering to provide subpoenaed documents only if the committee agrees in advance to close the investigation. no investigator would ever agree to that and as you can understand, the other information related to those in the chain of command responsible for brian terry's murder and the death of individuals both north and south of the border cannot be concluded simply based on a briefing about post-february 4th. the attorney general says that his offer is extraordinary. the only thing extraordinary

about his offer is that he is asking the committee to close an investigation before the committee even gets to see the documents. he is pretending to offer. i can't accept that deal. no other committee chairman would. this committee will be considering today a very narrow contempt but members on both sides of the dais have repeatedly said that we owe it to the terry family to get to the truth. it is my intention to continue post contempt to do our job while meeting our other obligations to pursue waste, fraud and abuse in our government. with that, i recognize the ranking member for his opening statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i just want to first of all go

back for one moment, and the document that you read from june 20th, 2012, the one that you and i just got from the deputy attorney general, i do believe that we need to study this and make sure that we understand exactly what the president is asserting here. but just want to quote from it. on the last page, page 4, it says the legal basis for the president's assertion of executive privilege is set forth in the enclosed letter to the president from the attorney general. in brief, the compelled production to congress of these internal executive branch documents generated in the course of the deliberative process concerning the department's response to congressional oversight and related media inquiries would have significant damaging consequences. as i explained in our meeting

yesterday, and this is still quoting from the letter, it would inhibit the candor of such executive branch deliberations in the future and significantly impair the executive branch's ability to respond independently and effectively to congressional oversight. such compelled disclosure would be inconsistent with the separation of powers established in the constitution and would potentially create an imbalance in the relationship between these two co-equal branches of government. and now to my statement. first and foremost, i believe that congress does in fact, we will agree on this, mr. chairman, have responsibility to conduct vigorous oversight of the executive branch. that is our job. the constitution requires this from congress and the american people expect it from members

who serve on this committee. i take that very seriously. but the constitution also requires something else. it requires us to recognize the legitimate interests of the executive branch and to avoid unnecessary conflict by seeking reasonable accommodations when possible. in my opinion, the committee has failed in this fundamental responsibility. last night, the attorney general came to us in good faith. he offered to provide additional internal deliberative documents. he pledged to provide a substantive briefing on the department's actions. he agreed to a request by senator grassley to describe the categories of documents being produced and those being withheld. he made clear that he was

willing to provide substantive responses to additional questions and he even offered to provide documents that are outside the scope of the committee's subpoena. he also made it clear that he had already provided documents that weren't even asked for. all he requested in return was that you as chairman of this committee give him the good faith commitment that we would move toward resolving this contempt fight. didn't ask for ending the investigation. just ending this contempt fight. i double-checked with my staff because when you said that, i heard, i was in the meeting with him and i heard, what he said was very clear. it was a fair and reasonable offer, especially in the light of the partisan and highly inflammatory personal attacks you made against him throughout

this investigation. for the past year, you've been holding the attorney general to an impossible standard. you accused him of a cover-up and i quote, that's a quote, protecting documents he was unable by law to produce. let me say that again. you accused him of a cover-up for protecting documents he was prohibited by law from producing. you claimed that he, and i quote, obstructed, end of quote, the committee's work by complying with federal statutes passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president of the united states. earlier this month you went on national television and called the attorney general the nation's highest ranking chief law enforcement officer a liar. at the same time, you refused

requests to hold a public hearing with ken melson, the former head of atf, the agency responsible for conducting these operations. this refusal came after mr. melson told the committee investigators privately that he never informed senior officials at the justice department about gun walking during operation fast and furious because he was unaware himself. last night, you flatly rejected the attorney general's offer. you refused to even commit to working towards a mutually agreeable resolution. instead, you rushed to a prearranged press conference to announce the failure of the meeting. it seems clear that you had no interest in resolving this issue and that the committee planned to go forward with contempt before we walked into the meeting with the attorney general. it pains me to say this but this

is what i believe. this is especially disappointing since the department has already turned over more than 1,000 pages of documents that answer your question. you want to know why the department sent a letter to senator grassley initially denying allegations of gun walking. the documents show that when they were drafting this letter, the department's legislative affairs office relied on the categorical and emphatic denials from the leaders of atf. these are the same atf officials you now refuse to call for public hearing. this morning, we were informed that the administration is now asserting executive privilege over and you're right, a narrow subset. it is indeed narrow, of documents that remain at issue. as i understand it, the assertion does not cover everything in this category such as whistle blower documents, and

the administration has indicated that it remains and i emphasize remains willing to try to come to a mutual resolution despite its formal legal assertion. as a member of congress, i treat assertions of executive privilege very seriously and i believe they should be used only sparingly. in this case, it seems clear that the administration was forced into a position by the committee's unreasonable insistence on pressing forward with contempt despite the attorney general's good faith offer. mr. chairman, it did not have to be this way. it really didn't. we could have postponed today's vote, accepted the attorney general's offer and worked with the department to obtain additional documents and information. instead, by not honoring the constitution's charge to seek accommodation when possible, the position and prestige of this

committee has been diminished, a result that should concern us all. with that i yield back. >> i trust the gentleman did not mean to demean my intention but for the record, the press conference that occurred after our meeting was equally usable and intended to announce that we had a deal and a stay if it was appropriate, and i had prepared a written statement saying that we would be staying today's markup had we been offered anything pursuant to our letter so i trust the gentleman would realize that it could have gone another way and we had no idea. >> mr. chairman, i believe you when you say that. i trust that that's what the situation was. i simply was giving my opinion of the way it was set up. that's all. >> i thank the gentleman. i will hold the record open until the end of the day for members who would like to submit

formal written statements. the report will be considered as read under regular order and members will be recognized to speak to offer amendments under the five minute rule. i now call up the contempt report regarding attorney general eric holder. the report has been distributed to all members. without objection, the report will be considered as read and open for amendment at any time. does anyone wish to speak on the report? with that, i would recognize the gentleman from indiana, mr. burton, five minutes. >> first of all, let me just say after having been chairman of this committee for six years, i want to compliment our chairman on being so patient. if anybody looks at the record and sees how long darrell issa has dealt with this issue and how he's handled it, i think it would say that he has been more than patient and so i think that needs to be in the record. the second thing i'd like to say is that there's no question in

anybody's mind that's been involved in this investigation that the attorney general has been stonewalling this committee. the chairman has contacted him and his associates numerous times and without result, and when the chairman met with him in the last 24 hours and discussed this, there was no information forthcoming that would have been able to set aside this contempt hearing today. the second thing i'd like to say is that the president's assertion of executive privilege creates even more questions. one of the big issues that we've been dealing with is who knew about fast and furious, when did they know about it and how high up did it go. and the attorney general has asserted on numerous occasions that he didn't know about this. now the president of the united states has claimed executive privilege. that brings into question whether or not eric holder knew

about it and how much did the president know about this. why would the president claim executive privilege unless there was something very, very important that he felt should not be made known to this committee and possibly to the public. so my question is, and i'm not going to take all my time, who knew about this, how high up did it go, did it go to the attorney general or even the president of the united states, and when did they know it. and this committee needs to find that out, especially since we had not only weapons going across the border, but a border patrol agent murdered with those weapons. i yield back the balance of my time. >> the gentleman yields back. does anyone else seek recognition? the gentle lady from new york is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am astounded that today we are

sitting here weighing whether to hold the attorney general of the united states, the highest ranking law enforcement officer in our country, in contempt of congress. the house of representatives has never in our long history held an attorney general in contempt, and i am horrified that you are going forward with this contempt charge when the president of the united states and the administration have invoked executive privilege for the documents sought by the chairman. and the attorney general is being attacked for protecting documents that he is and i just speak strongly in

opposition to this action and in opposition to this report. i would like to point out that our committee, the committee on oversight and government reform is supposed to root out problems and find ways to reform how government works. it shouldn't be a political witch hunt against the attorney general of our country and our president in an election year. and what we should be doing is looking at ways we can stop problems from happening again, so my basic question, mr. chairman, is where is the reform? our committee is supposed to be working on government reform and any legitimate investigation must be rooted in finding solutions to problems once they're identified, not just

character assassination and overruling presidents and attacking the chief law enforcement officer in our land. so again, i ask where are the reforms. during this investigation, we've learned a great deal about what went wrong in the phoenix field division at the atf and the arizona united states attorney's office. we heard directly from atf agents who witnessed the misguided tactics of gun walking occur which started in prior administrations, and they asked for our help in implementing reforms and coming forward with solutions to the problems that they were seeing every day along the southwest border. the problem they were worried about was not paperwork and subpoenas and contempt charges.

they were worried about guns. so where are the reforms and the actions that we could take in response to the problems that they put before us? throughout this investigation, atf witnesses consistently told this committee that they need reinforcements to the weak federal laws that prohibit gun trafficking. peter forcelli, an atf special agent in phoenix, called existing gun laws toothless. so mr. chairman, when do we put forward some teeth in the law? to help our enforcement officers combat crime? efforts to simply discuss reforms have not been welcomed by this committee. when i attempted to question the atf agents about defects with the current laws to combat gun trafficking, mr. chairman, you cut me off and specifically

instructed the atf agents not to answer my question. so i tried to act on reforms with many members of this committee, including ranking member cummings. we tried to help law enforcement officers fight gun trafficking along the southwest border, and we did not get any support from the other side of the aisle. mr. issa has rebuffed requests by ranking member cummings to address reforms at the department of justice and the clear need for legislation to fight illegal gun trafficking along the southwest border, including a request for a hearing on the topic, just a hearing, and the chairman has also demanded that the department of justice produce a wiretap applications that were ordered sealed. >> gentle lady's time has expired. i would ask unanimous consent the gentle lady have an additional 30 seconds. without objection, so ordered.

>> and i must say, mr. chairman, i am offended offended personally by your calling the attorney general a liar, and it is extremely disrespectful, and attacking to our public servant, and you have called me a liar. you apologized later and i accepted, but where have we did he generated to in calling names and not having hearings on meaningful reforms and merely degenerating to attacking people and moving forward with paperwork that is unwarranted, unfair, and violates the law of the united states of america? >> i thank the lady. who else seeks recognition? recognized for five minutes.

>> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for upholding the responsibility of this investigative arm of the house of representatives to hold the highest ranking prosecutorial official in the united states and the united states government responsible for what turned into horrible death of one of our agents and a plan that went dramatically sour. i chaired policy committee, worked with officials, warned them of what was coming in march of 2009 and we had a hearing, mr. waxman the chairman at the time, and this is congressman

micah reached out his hand by passionately pledging his full support if the new administration allocates large resources to assist the mexican government to contain drug violence with zero tolerance and mica explicitly encouraged the administration to put in place a plan to stop the slaughter house south of the border and help mexico regain control of its country. i also criticized the previous democratic controlled congress for not conducting a single hearing. i did dozens of them. general lady is wrong in that this is the first attorney general to face this situation, henry waxman threatened and scheduled contempt proceedings against some of the bush

officials including mcclow syy and charged him with failing to produce documents with the committee's investigation and the release of classified documents. this is not about release of classified documents. this is very serious business. this is the highest judicial prosecutorial position in the united states involved in creating a situation in which an agent of the united states was murdered with weapons supplied by the department of justice in a scheme that went unbelievably sour as i said. for the first 11 months the administration denied, denied participation in this to this committee the investigative arm of the house of representatives. for eight months the chairman has -- we've had a subpoena out

there and they denied providing us the information. at the last hour last night they offered a deal to provide us some information and tried to close down the case. this is absolutely absurd. then this morning the white house in an attempt to thwart the committee's lawful investigation tries to throw out executive privilege, a complete fiasco. mr. burton and i have been on this committee a long time. there are reasons to exert executive privilege and try to stop the investigation of this committee into the department of justice bringing about one of the worst diskorjmentes on the history of the department of justice is indeed an injustice

to the congress, to the american people, and this important investigative arm of the house of representatives. this is a very sad day for the united states of america when the president would engage himself at the last minute and try to exert executive privilege, when the attorney general who again, you know, our job is to find out what went wrong. maybe he is innocent. maybe people are innocent in this. there is no reason in the world or under the law or under the proceedings of congress and our constitution and the way this government is set up that this committee is not entitled to this information in this investigation to again maintain the integrity of this important office. maybe i am idealistic. i didn't think this could go on in a department of justice in the united states of america in

this day and age. it is a very sad day. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. anyone else seek recognition, general lady from the district of columbia recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman, i have a question about the process. >> general lady recognized for a question. >> that was undertaken within the last 24 hours. in light of the statement you made, we are down as i understand it to internal deliberate documents which may not basis for the executive privilege and the committee is no longer demanding documents that are under seal or involved in on going investigations, criminal investigations, so down to the internal deliberate

correspondence within the department. mr. chairman, clearly if we are -- >> would the general lady state a question. >> yes. >> the general lady can be recognized for five minutes for any reason. could you narrow your question. >> let me ask again. can i go on for five minimum. >> general lady recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. during this process there has been an attempted resolution, the concern that we learned about what caused the killing of the agent was a bipartisan concern. in your opening remarks you left the impression that the attorney general came with certain offerings of documents and demanded not to be held in contempt. the ranking member says in his

statement that the attorney general asked that --nd quoting now from what the ranking member said, that we move toward resolving this contempt fight. for give me, mr. chairman, if i read that as a call for continued discussions and negotiations behind the contempt matter. mr. chairman, considering that no cabinet official has ever been held by the courts to be in contempt of congress, that if this matter gets to the floor of the house, it would then be referred to a democratic u.s. attorney just as to take the

opposite case when this committee referred similar matters to ultimately a republican u.s. attorney no actions was taken. if we are interested in resolution, understanding that is the likely final result, it does seem to me and i would ask you to reconsider what appears to be an offer by the attorney general not a demand, and i believe some clarification is necessary here, but an offer that if he presented these documents which he believes he did not have to present, that you in turn agree to engage in continuing discussions and negotiations. if that is the case, seems to me, mr.