Report: Boehner holding up Fast and Furious Investigation out of fear that Holder will play Race Card

Scoff at the headline all you want but that is straight from the same guy who claimed to have a source back in February that told him House Speaker John Boehner was the one holding up Issa's investigation into Fast and Furious. Sipsey Street's Mike Vanderboegh proved to be correct about that just last month. That takes care of the 'who' when talking about the person responsible for preventing Issa from doing his job. How about the why? Now, Vanderboegh has quoted a source he trusts "implicitly" which seems to answer that question.

Via Sipsey Street:

"They (the GOP leadership) don't think that they will suffer for failure to follow through. They're scared of Holder's race card. . . they're scared of Trayvon. They think if they let Issa fail, that it will only be a story in the blogosphere for a day . . . that they can weather it. . . . They exert pressure behind the scenes on those weak-kneed bastards (GOP congressmen), promise them shit and when the vote happens it will only look like Issa's case was weak. . . It will be his fault, not theirs."

Boehner is scared of the Trayvon case? Really? So are the likes of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the Black Panthers determining the course of a Congressional investigation into what could be the most felonious and far-reaching scandal in the history of presidential administrations?

When Vanderboegh posted back in February that Boehner was putting the leash on Issa, the Oversight Committee chairman's office denied the charge. Whether Issa's office was duped by Boehner, defending him, or just playing it close to the vest makes little difference. The credibility is on the side of the man with the source who proved to be correct, which is what makes this new charge so outrageous.

Essentially, if true, Boehner is deciding to prove Holder right about the United States being a "nation of cowards."



Another curious dynamic at work may serve to give Boehner an out and it has to do with reports that Issa doesn't have enough votes in his own committee to issue the contempt charge.

The Oversight Committee has 40 members, 23 of which are Republicans. This obviously means that only 21 votes are necessary to find Holder in contempt of Congress but the Hill has reported that only 16 members (all Republicans) have committed to vote 'yes.' Two of the other seven Republicans remain uncommitted and the remaining five refuse to comment on their position. Of those five, there are two in particular whose silence is curious.

One is Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA), who has been one of the most aggressive members during committee hearings. He was part of one of the most compelling exchanges to date, with former ATF Special Agent in Charge, William Newell.

The other congressman, whose refusal to commit may be easier to explain - especially if the Trayvon Martin case is a factor - is Rep. Connie Mack (R-FL). Not only is Mack's district in the state where Trayvon was killed but he's in the middle of a tight Senate race with incumbent Bill Nelson. The irony is that if such considerations are behind his silence, he's probably the wrong guy for the job.

What makes Mack's silence even more disturbing is an exchange he had with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton back in October. At a House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, Mack exposed Clinton's role in Fast and Furious by pointing out that if the State Department issued the DOJ a waiver to allow guns to cross the border into Mexico, Hillary was on the hook. If the DOJ did so without getting such a waiver, Holder was on the hook. To this day, there appears to have been ZERO follow-up but what it does reveal is that Mack knows how deep this scandal goes and he appears to be playing politics instead of doing the right thing.

Here is that exchange:



If the Fast and Furious investigation ends up going nowhere, it'd be like having the biggest fish in the lake on your line, knowing it, and cutting it loose before you land it. Then, despite doing so, you continue to fish.

What's the point?

If the investigation dies, the Oversight Committee should just shut its doors.

For a list of uncommitted Republican Congressmen on the Oversight Committee, click HERE.

Either way, we're getting much closer to learning why John Boehner cries so much: