Gohmert: GOP AGs have been ‘brutalized’

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) rejected Attorney General Eric Holder’s complaints of congressional persecution, saying some Republican attorneys general have been “brutalized” by comparison. 

Gohmert said Thursday night the evidence does not back up Holder’s assertion that he has been treated unfairly compared to his predecessors, following a testy exchange between the two at a House Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week. 

{mosads}”Now, when he says he’s been so mistreated, he does not have evidence,” Gohmert said on Fox News. “As a judge and a chief justice, I look for evidence. He has none. Maybe he was too busy helping Marc Rich get a pardon,” he said, referring to the convicted fraudster who received a pardon shortly before President Bill Clinton left office, partly on the advice of Holder, who was deputy attorney general at the time. 

Gohmert ticked off a number of past Republican attorneys general who he said had seen much worse than Holder.  

“Alberto Gonzalez, Bush’s appointment, was brutalized by Democrats in the Senate and the House,” he said. “John Ashcroft was brutalized. Ed Meese, brutalized. John Mitchell, now he may have deserved what he got, but he sure got a lot worse treatment than this attorney general,” he said.

Holder took umbrage for his treatment at the hearing, in which Gohmert asserted Holder did not take seriously a House vote holding him in contempt.  

During a speech in front of a civil rights group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton, Holder on Thursday said he, as well as President Obama, faced “unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive adversity.”

Gohmert noted that Holder did not mention race as a cause of the treatment. 

“He didn’t say race, and he was very careful about that,” Gohmert said. “And does it matter to me; I could care less. I want to get to the bottom of it.”