Issa to Sue Holder on Charges of Contempt

(Newsroom America) -- House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., plans to file suit against Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday over his refusal to provide documents the committee has requested as it investigates the "Fast and Furious" gun-running operation.

"The committee expects to file the civil contempt suit against the attorney general Monday," a Republican source told Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper.

The source said the suit will be filed in federal court in the District of Columbia.

The legal filing will be the latest action in a confrontation between Holder and the panel. Holder and Republicans are seeking more information related to the botched operation in which a U.S. Border Patrol agent was allegedly killed with a weapon that was allowed to "walk" across the border from the U.S. into Mexico.

On June 28, the House voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress and authorized the panel to bring suit to enforce its rights, the paper said.

Fast and Furious was an operation set up and run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to track guns purchased in the U.S. by surrogates of Mexican drug cartels.

Once guns were allowed to "walk," however, direct surveillance ended. The agency "tracked" the weapons by tracing them to crime scenes involving cartel members, the paper reported.

That tactic was condemned following the murder of Border agent Brian Terry when a pair of Fast and Furious weapons were discovered at the scene.

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