Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, denounced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday, declaring that Breuer’s “incredibly poor judgment” and lack of candor over the botched Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation make him unfit to head the Criminal Division.
“It’s past time for accountability at the senior levels of the Justice Department,” Grassley said. “I believe it’s time for him to go.”
Grassley called on Breuer to “do the honorable thing” and tender his resignation. If he refuses to do that, Grassley went on, Attorney General Eric Holder, who will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday in what is certain to be a hostile and heated session, should fire him at once.
Grassley said Breuer had displayed “a complete lack of judgment,” not only in the Fast and Furious episode but in an earlier gun-tracking operation that originated in the George W. Bush administration known as Wide Receiver. Even worse, Grassley said, Breuer was misleading within the DOJ and in communicating with Congress about what he knew about Fast and Furious, and when.
Average Americans are rightly “outraged and astonished” by the details of Fast and Furious as they seep out, Grassley said. Unfortunately, the senator went on, there appears to be “a vast gulf” between what outrages most Americans and what outrages Breuer.
Grassley’s condemnation of Breuer, while not surprising in view of Grassley’s steady criticism of Fast and Furious and skepticism over the DOJ’s explanations, was dramatic nonetheless. And the timing was unfortunate for Holder, who is guaranteed a hostile reception on Thursday when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee, two of whose members are among the most vociferous Republican critics of the DOJ and want someone to pay for its recent mistakes.
