According to Attorney General Eric Holder, criticism over Fast and Furious is based on racism, a charge Rep. Allen West called "reprehensible."
On Monday, the Daily Caller reported:
Attorney General Eric Holder accused his growing chorus of critics of racist motivations in a Sunday interview published in the New York Times. When reached by The Daily Caller Monday morning, the Department of Justice provided no evidence to support the attorney general’s claims.
Holder said some unspecified faction — what he refers to as the “more extreme segment” — is driven to criticize both him and President Barack Obama due to the color of their skin. Holder did not appear to elaborate on who he considered to make up the “more extreme segment.”
“This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” Holder told the Times. “Both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”
He also attributed the firestorm over the scandal to his ideology, which he described as "consistently progressive."
"Wow, that’s just what America needs from the Attorney General: unsubstantiated random allegations of racial thought crimes," John Hayward wrote at Human Events.
The Daily Caller adds that "a growing list of 60 congressmen, two senators, every major Republican presidential candidate and two sitting governors" have called on Holder to resign, and 75 Members of Congress have signed onto a resolution expressing "no confidence" in the Attorney General.
Among those calling for his resignation is Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID).
Rep. Allen West (R-FL), called Holder's remarks "reprehensible" in an interview Monday with the Daily Caller.
Florida Republican Rep. Allen West told The Daily Caller on Monday that Attorney General Eric Holder’s use of the race card as a way to attack those who are criticizing him is “reprehensible.”
“I think this is absolutely the last card in the deck, and that shows how weak their ground is,” West said in a phone interview. “But, what that means is they want to make white individuals afraid of continuing to put the pressure on Eric Holder because they don’t want to be seen as racist, and that is something that we have got to move beyond.”
West added that the criticisms of Holder have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the way the scandal has been handled.
“What Fast and Furious has to do with is misleading the Congress and the American people about what you knew about this program, and if you did not know anything about this program, then who’s in charge of the Department of Justice?” West asked.
“It has nothing to do with your race — it has everything to do with competence, with your character and with your ability to lead the Department of Justice,” he added.
Since becoming President, Obama and his surrogates have linked all criticism of the Administration to racism, and the Attorney General has called the United States a nation of cowards over race.
"If Holder was a lightning rod for partisan criticism before, you can imagine what the reaction might be to racial politics being injected into the discussion," Josh Feldman wrote at Mediaite.
More on Attorney General Eric Holder at Examiner.com here.
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