further fueling speculation that he is planning a white house run. peter doocy joins us from the d.c. bureau. how much has holder said about 2020 so far? there have been things here and there. he said he is thinking about running for president and that if he does decide to run it would be because he thinks he could be a unifying figure. this morning the crowd at the college in new hampshire for the politics and eggs event supposed the start five minutes ago is made up of influential local business leaders and political activists who only heard from two other possible trump challenge gears this year. martin o malley and senator jeff flake. holder was the first ever african-american attorney general and he was also the first ever attorney general to be held in contempt of congress when republicans got fed up that he wasn t turning over documents tied to the fast and furious investigation. but he helped implement the obama agenda at d.o.j. for six years. he represents a throwback to
us there were only a couple hundred more if we just drop the investigation, he would give them to us. we then received over a long period of time tens of thousands more documents and there is still more in the fast and furious investigation. this is a rotten to the core system in which they take unclassified documents and fly spec them and redact thousands and thousands of lines, based on, quote, law enforcement sensitive. to do that, they put a few people in a room. they slowly work on it and then they tell you we re working as fast as we can. the system has to change. the congress deserves to look at at least what they call in camera unredacted forms by the hundreds of thousands or millions and this is where the chairman, a very mild mannered, slow to act person, bob goodlatte issued a subpoena and we re in a position where it s appropriate to consider contempt of the department of justice and
generally the u.s. attorneys are professional and independent. but particularly in the i am g. s office. i worked win spector general horowitz in the past. and he took very serious action against doj officials. he had a termination of a u.s. attorney. i just submitted a complaint to the fast and furious investigation. and he wrote a scathing report about the u.s. attorney in arizona who lost his job over it. it was politically motivated leak. he took it seriously and did an independent investigation. the president at the time was president obama. i trust his independence and i trust his judgment. i think probably attorney general sessions does as well. i think people who know the
president s personal lawyer. he s the attorney general of the united states. is it a fair characterization to say that holder totally protected obama because he did bring up the irs scandal, the fast and furious investigation. yeah. look, i worked in the white house as part of the administration during this time. it is not a fair characterization. look, there is no doubt there was a relationship between president obama and attorney general eric holder that preceded his appointment as attorney general. but one of the things that s certainly different with regards to that relationship and the current relationship is that eric holder maintained a very strict wall between the administration and what the work of the justice department. there was never a scenario where the president of the united states, the previous president of the united states, asked attorney general holder to take any action with regard to a particular investigation because there was widespread understanding that wo
areas that you didn t feel like talking about today. and if you do, can you give us those things in writing, any documentation, it was kind of gentle encouragement i think, and you saw that you saw him do the same thing with coats as well in the previous testimony. it was extremely gentle and let s contrast that with the republican treatment a few years ago of former attorney general eric holder. the house republicans voted to hold him in contempt of congress when he invoked executive privilege and didn t want to turn over documents related to the fast and furious investigation. let me play the exchange:this is sessions talking about that oval office meeting that comey had with the president. listen to this, mark. we were there. i was standing there, and without repeating any conversation that took place what i do recall is i did depart and everybody else did depart and director comey was sitting in front of the president s desk