Eric Holder Says He’s ‘Proxy’ for Obama Attacks

UPDATE: In his first interview since Congress voted to hold him in contempt last week, Attorney General Eric Holder says Republicans have made him a “proxy” to attack President Obama during an election year. Holder tells the Washington Post that lawmakers are using the “Fast and Furious” investigation as political theater to express their dissatisfaction with a number of Justice Department policies, including immigration and gay marriage.

“I’ve become a symbol of what they don’t like about the positions this Justice Department has taken,” he said. “I am also a proxy for the president in an election year. You have to be exceedingly naive to think that vote was about . . . documents.”

Holder added that it marks “a sad indication of where Washington has come, where policy differences almost necessarily become questions of integrity.”

July 2: House Republicans plan to file a suit in federal court over the Obama administration's use of executive privilege to withhold some Justice Department documents from the "Fast and Furious" gun-walking investigation.

Speaker John Boehner told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday that House Republicans will follow up their contempt vote of Attorney General Eric Holder with a civil suit over the next few weeks. As Reuters notes, the House had voted on Thursday to give itself the authority to go to court for the withheld documents.

Holder is the first sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt by Congress. The Republican-led vote against Holder on Thursday originated from accusations that Holder has failed to cooperate with a House Oversight Committee investigation into the botched gun-walking operation.

On Friday, the Justice Department said they would not prosecute Holder following the House vote that placed him in contempt of Congress.