Flashback 2008: Watch Boehner Lead Republicans off House Floor During Contempt Votes Against Top Bush Staffers Who Refused to Testify Before Congress

With some House Democrats planning to walk out today when House Republicans vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for no good reason, it’s instructive to look back to a similar moment in 2008, when then-Minority Leader John Boehner led a walk out over a vote to hold Bushies Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton in contempt for a legitimate reason: they refused even to show up for a hearing about Bush-Rove firing U.S. attorneys who refused to play along with Rove’s bogus voter fraud campaign.

To Boehner’s credit, at least did not cry, via Dave Weigel:

February 14, 2008 — a date which will live in almost nobody’s memory — brought the first contempt vote on an executive branch official since the 1980s. Democrats had spent the better part of a year investigating the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys, who (it’s pretty well agreed now) had refused to jump high enough when asked to pursue voter fraud claims. White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Josh Bolten refused to appear before committee, citing executive privilege on the in-demand information. So Democrats brought their vote.

Partial transcript:

House Minority Leader JOHN BOEHNER (R-Ohio): Earlier today, the [Pres. Bush] said he would delay his trip to Africa, a long-planned trip, he would delay it so that he could work with us to sign the long-term foreign intelligence surveillance act modernization law into law.

House Republicans stand ready to stay here as long as it takes to get this bill passed and get it to the president’s desk.

And, ladies and gentlemen, we will not stand here and watch this floor be abused for pure political grandstanding at the expense of our national security.
We will — we will — we will not stand for this and we will not stay for this.

And I would ask my House Republican colleagues and those who believe that we should be here protecting the American people not vote on this bill.
Let’s just get up and leave.

Connect:

3 thoughts on “Flashback 2008: Watch Boehner Lead Republicans off House Floor During Contempt Votes Against Top Bush Staffers Who Refused to Testify Before Congress”

  1. That was a much different situation when a few political party members walked out as opposed to the black caucus making a racial statement for one of their blacks. everything blacks do is based on race and almost noting more, if there were a white group to protect whites like there is a black group to stand behind anything for blacks , it would be called racist/ blacks even used the martin shooting as an excuse to spread more hate for whites. just read theblaze.com and you can see how vile the black panthers are. and if you do not think the panthers are programming many young blacks to think like them your sadly wrong.

  2. Read theblaze? really?

    The blaze is anti-democrat and since the black panthers are pro democrat the blaze will do anything they can to smear them.

    On that note holder should definitely be in contempt, if not for fast and furious then for his marijuana witch hunt

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.