OPINION:
As president of the National Border Patrol Council, I represent more than 17,000 rank-and-file Border Patrol agents. I personally have been an agent for more than 25 years, during which time I have seen my fair share of politics related to the service. We have dealt with overzealous prosecutors and anti-immigration organizations, but never have we had to deal with an attorney general who has complete disregard for one of our own.
Eric H. Holder Jr. is called “America’s top cop” as the attorney general of the United States. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held hearings with Mr. Holder as a witness in order to properly investigate the disaster known as Operation Fast and Furious. Direct questions have been aimed at the attorney general to determine who is at fault and to hold those parties accountable for their involvement in the operation. To date, Mr. Holder has danced around the questions, releasing only a small fraction of the documents that have been requested by Congress. He has not answered all of the questions that the committee has asked him. We are one-and-a-half years into this investigation and are no closer to getting the answers than when we started. It is downright unacceptable. This is why the National Border Patrol Council is calling for the resignation of Mr. Holder. Credibility, honesty, integrity and honor are trademarks that every law enforcement officer brings to work every day. Yet, as America’s top cop, Mr. Holder has failed on every count.
Operation Fast and Furious cost the life of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and was a complete catastrophe. It demonstrated the incompetence of several agency managers. To think that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) would allow Mexican citizens to purchase weapons and then take them back to Mexico in order to use them for committing further crimes against their people and the citizens of the United States is unbelievable. But that is exactly what they did, and they accomplished this with the blessing of Mr. Holder.
When this investigation started, we hoped the legal system would reveal answers to questions that so many people had asked: How did this happen? Who allowed it? Who made the decision to continue with this operation? Who knew about this and did not report the facts to the proper authorities? We know Mr. Holder has the answers. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants these answers. The Terry family deserves the answers. Mr. Holder knows the answers, but refuses to provide them. If the attorney general has any respect left for the position he currently holds, then he should do four honorable things:
Apologize to the Terry family.
Deliver all relevant documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Provide thorough and honest answers to all of the questions that he has not answered to date.
Resign immediately.
George E. McCubbin III is president of the National Border Patrol Council.
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