Issa plans Holder contempt vote for June 20
Monday, June 11, 2012 at 08:52PM 
House Republicans sounded like they were ready to go to war with the Obama administration Monday over the Fast and Furious program as they announced a committee vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.
But behind the scenes, House Republican leaders want nothing more than for the White House and Justice Department to fork over thousands of pages of documents related to the ill-fated gun-running program and avoid a dramatic — and potentially distracting — House floor showdown.
Even as Speaker John Boehner said Monday that the DOJ is “out of excuses,” his staff and the Justice Department are continuing informal discussions. Those talks haven’t yielded any progress, and Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is planning his contempt vote for June 20 in committee.
But the unavoidable reality is this: Republican leadership sees this issue as a political loser.
“This isn’t the message leadership wants,” one veteran House Republican lawmaker said. “They just want a boring, quiet summer of us not saying anything to screw up [and] get in the way of Obama’s economic news.”
A House GOP aide added, “Not a fight we are looking for. It doesn’t look good for anybody.”
The Department of Justice and Issa’s staff are still talking, and the Justice Department says that “as recently as a few days ago, the department staff and committee staff were discussing a way toward a resolution of this matter.”
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