Gowdy to Examiner, Fox News: Oversight will get all documents

Less than 24 hours after he grilled Attorney General Eric Holder over Operation Fast and Furious, South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy told this column, following an appearance on Fox & Friends Friday morning that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will get all of the documents it has requested, one way or the other.

In an exclusive telephone interview with this column, the freshman Palmetto State congressman said he has no personal animosity toward Holder, but that at some point, the person in charge must take responsibility for the actions of their subordinates.

Gowdy zeroed in on the fact that the Justice Department’s Inspector General has an estimated 80,000 documents “and we (the committee) have only 6,000 documents.” Holder, he said, cited a “long standing Justice Department policy” early in Thursday’s hearing for not turning over all of the requested documents. Gowdy told this column:

“Department of Justice policy doesn’t have the force of law…The only privilege he could assert would be executive privilege.”

Earlier, Gowdy told Fox’s Gretchen Carlson bluntly:

“…I talked to Chairman (Darrell) Issa last night on the floor. We’re going to get those documents. It’s just a question of whether he (Holder) wants us to do it the easy way or the hard way.”

The documents have been requested and/or subpoenaed by the House Committee and Chairman Darrell Issa. During yesterday’s hearing, reported by this column, a clearly frustrated Issa made it clear to Holder that the committee has a right to see those documents, and if Holder continues to withhold them, he needs to explain why, in detail.

Gowdy, who was interviewed by this column last fall, put his skills as a prosecutor to work late in the game during the more-than-four-hour hearing Thursday. It was clear from his questioning, available from the Committee on YouTube here, that he had been waiting patiently, and when his turn came, he was ready.

For his part, Holder weathered a storm that left some observers expecting him to “ride it out” and survive partisan calls for his resignation over his handling – or mishandling – of Fast and Furious.

But in his exchange with Gowdy, Holder appeared clearly outmatched. Challenged about documents specifically mentioning Fast and Furious, Holder told Gowdy that, “I would like to see those.” Gowdy’s response was quick: He had them in hand and Issa called a five-minute recess so Gowdy could hand them over for Holder’s review.

If this was a trap, Holder walked right into it. This morning, Gowdy commented to Fox about one of the most important results of yesterday’s hearing:

“That Main Justice – not the U.S. Attorney’s office in Arizona – but Main Justice in Washington D.C. knew about gun walking well in advance of Fast and Furious and well in advance of Brian Terry’s murder in December (2010).”

A moment later, Gowdy reiterated to Carlson:

“I thought we proved pretty conclusively yesterday at least four or five of his senior level officials in DOJ knew about gun walking.”

Gowdy’s gloves have clearly come off in his pursuit of truth in the Fast and Furious investigation. Noting to Carlson that he was a prosecutor and that he takes “no delight in criticizing the Department of Justice,” he made it clear that there is no more wiggle room in the investigation. That also applies to what he considers was a political ploy earlier this week when Democrats on the committee issued their own report – discussed by this column – that insists the committee has found no evidence of any wrongdoing by anyone at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. That report, Fatally Flawed: Five Years of Gunwalking in Arizona, blames officials in the U.S. Attorney’s office and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix, Arizona for the debacle. (This column noted that the report has a few flaws of its own.)

Gowdy’s reaction was brutal:

“Welcome to Washington, and if your Ambien prescription runs out I would recommend that you read the minority report. It’s short on facts; it’s 60-something pages long. This is why people don’t like Congress or the institutions of government.

This really is a fact or a justice matter; it’s not a political matter…but the Democrat minority report is a political document, it’s not a factual document.”

In his conversation with this column, he suggested that labeling something a “minority report” gives a document a semblance of authenticity, and “it gives reporters or those sympathetic to the DOJ” the opportunity to suggest there is another side of this issue.

Gowdy told the Examiner that he believes orders for field agents to stand down and not make contact with Fast and Furious gun walkers came from “line prosecutors and an ATF supervisor (in Arizona) who clearly had no idea what they were doing.” He does not believe that responsibility for that crucial decision came from Main Justice in Washington, D.C.

However, Gowdy had this observation:

“I think leaders are responsible not only for what they do but for people under them who do what they do.”

In his brief chat with this column, Gowdy said someone needs to take responsibility; it would be “so refreshing” for someone to accept responsibility. Instead, the country is now watching “people pointing the finger at one another.”

“We’re not to the point of fully understanding what’s happened so far,” he stated.

And he said something else that indicates he understands and has more faith in the American public than, perhaps, do those who have been throwing up roadblocks in this investigation.

If someone had stepped forward early in this case and admitted the mistakes, and said they would learn from it and make sure it would never happen again, “People would be okay with that,” Gowdy concluded.

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