foxnews.com ^ | 6/29/12 | foxnews
The Justice Department moved Friday to shield Attorney General Eric Holder from prosecution after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.
The contempt vote technically opens the door for the House to call on the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to bring the case against Holder before a grand jury. But because U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen works for Holder and because President Obama has already asserted executive privilege over the documents in question, it was expected Holder's Justice Department would not take that step.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole confirmed in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner that the department in fact would not pursue prosecution.
The attorney general's withholding of documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, he wrote, "does not constitute a crime."
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