Darrell Issa: “I am not going to refer to the current President or the presumptive nominee. For my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I am going…”

“I am not going to refer to the current President or the presumptive nominee. For my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I am going to refer to the history of this body because I think the study of the history of this body should tell Members on both sides of the aisle that this is an appropriate contempt. It will lead eventually to compliance and, again, to holding this body as a coequal branch of government. I might remind my colleagues, some of them here in the room, Mr. Speaker, that in 2007, this body held the White House counsel on behalf of the President of the United States, then-President Bush, in contempt for refusing to show up before this very committee, Judiciary. In 2012, this body held a previous Attorney General--in a very similar situation affecting the same two committees that have been speaking here, Oversight and Accountability and Judiciary--Eric Holder, in contempt because he told us that if we would take 200-and-some documents, that was all that was left, and end our case, he would give them to us. Otherwise, he would withhold them. We held him in contempt, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an appointee of President Obama, held several things, including that President Obama had clearly falsely claimed an executive privilege, probably based on being misled by then-Attorney General Eric Holder. In fact, 10,000-plus documents were turned over to the United States Congress. The then-Attorney General had lied.…”