House oversight committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings asked his committee’s chairman, California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, to withdraw the looming contempt of Congress citation against Attorney General Eric Holder for withholding subpoenaed documents related to Operation Fast and Furious.

In a press release following a Thursday House Judiciary Committee hearing in which Holder sparred with House Republicans, Cummings claimed Issa has flip-flopped on the documents he has subpoenaed — for election-year political reasons.

At issue in Cummings’ request are wiretap applications that were sealed by a federal judge, which Issa announced his committee recently obtained. Issa claimed the six applications show that senior Justice Department officials approved Fast and Furious gunrunning tactics.

The documents, Issa has written, demonstrate that Holder and several other DOJ officials in the Obama administration provided “false” statements to Congress.

But during a disruption in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Democratic Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Mel Watt attacked Issa for bringing up the wiretaps at all. They argued it was unfair for Issa to subpoena those wiretap documents because they were sealed by a judge. Violating that order, they said, can bring is a penalty of five years in prison. The Daily Caller spotted Jackson Lee speaking with Holder at the beginning of the hearing.

Issa shot back, saying, “We did not request any wiretaps under seal.”

He knows this, he said, because, “I’m the person who signed the subpoenas.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/08/cummings-urges-issa-to-halt-contempt-proceedings-against-holder/#ixzz1xIHr7yVP