House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on Thursday that the Department of Justice has "closed up" regarding the Fast and Furious investigation.
"You have to be reluctant when you're working with the administration to say we've come to the end," Issa said on Fox News. "But we've come to the point where it's clear that they're not going to give us the documents. They've sort of closed up and covered up the people they now want to protect."
Issa on Thursday morning circulated a 44-page draft resolution that would hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, in hopes of gaining support for swifter action against the DOJ for their role in the gun-tracking operation Fast and Furious.
"The Justice Department’s failure to respond appropriately to the allegations of whistleblowers and to cooperate with congressional oversight has crossed the line of appropriate conduct for a government agency,” reads a 17-page memo attached to the draft resolution.
"Congress now faces a moment of decision between exerting its full authority to compel an agency refusing to cooperate with congressional oversight or accepting a dangerous expansion of executive-branch authority and unilateral action allowing agencies to set their own terms for cooperating with congressional oversight."
Issa noted the resolution was drafted out of necessity, saying the back-and-forth between departments has gone on long enough, leaving the committee no other choice.
"We're running out of patience," Issa said in the Fox interview. "But we're not beyond the point of saying if you'll just give us what we should have — what the American people should have. If they don't, then we have the support of leadership to do what we have to do.
"We're not doing it because we want to," he continued. "We're doing it because Congress has a role."
