U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has cancelled his appearance at an Oklahoma City police academy graduation ceremony amid a planned protest by conservative lawmakers and organizations.
Holder will still be traveling to Oklahoma City but will no longer be speaking before the 42 graduating police cadets at the First Church just east of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. Protest organizers were calling on the officers in attendance “to place Holder in handcuffs.”
Conservative organizer Bob Dani had blasted Oklahoma City officials for allowing Holder to address Oklahoma City’s newest officers. “Eric Holder is in contempt of Congress right now,” he said.
Republican U.S. Rep. James Lankford, a candidate for U.S. Senate, objected to the appearance in a statement, calling Holder’s visit inappropriate given Holder’s “tactics of obfuscation and redirection of blame.”
“Holder’s action before Congress and his unwillingness to cooperate with our investigations of Operation Fast & Furious, the IRS targeting scandal and numerous other Justice Department boondoggles led the U. S. House to finally hold him in Contempt of Congress,” Lankford said. “For an executive agency with ‘justice’ in their title, they seem remarkably reticent to seek it when it involves their boss.”
Lankford currently serves on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has been investigating Holder’s malfeasance for years.
U.S. District Judge Vickie Miles LaGrange will be speaking in his place before the graduating police cadets.
Republican Rep. Paul Wesselhoft of Moore called Holder’s cancellation a “victory” for state lawmakers who were planning to protest.