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Attorney General Eric Holder cancelled plans to address a class of police academy graduates in Oklahoma City on Thursday after hundreds of state lawmakers, police officers and conservative activists planned a protest.
Before the cancellation, demonstrators requested that officers attending the ceremony place the attorney general in handcuffs, according to Oklahoma News9.com.
“Eric Holder is in contempt of Congress right now,” said conservative protest organizer Bob Dani, citing the “Fast and Furious” and IRS scandals.
Holder never made it to the show. Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said Thursday that an early-morning meeting would have made Holder too late to deliver the address. Instead, a U.S. District Court judge spoke to the group, according to The Washington Times.
“The attorney general had been looking forward to addressing the cadets, and regrets he cannot attend in person,” Fallon said. “He extends his heartfelt congratulations to the cadets and their families.”
The Justice Department denied that the cancellation had anything to do with the protest. The demonstrators weren’t so sure.
“Our protest has turned into a victory celebration because we frankly didn’t want him here — and we succeeded,” Republican Oklahoma Rep. Paul Wesselhoft said in an interview, according to The Times. “This man has used his position to advance his own political agenda, and that’s not right. He swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution and defend it for all of us — not some of us.”
Wesselhoft said he believes Holder should be impeached.
“He’s not coming because he’s a chicken,” activist Carla Russell told the Red Dirt Report, a local news website, according to The Times. “And he doesn’t want to be recorded with people protesting against him with signs like mine.”
Russell carried a sign saying, “Holder is a Terrorist.”
In 2009, Holder famously said that Americans “have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.” He doubled down on the statement in interview with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center in January. Maybe he was speaking about himself?
Watch the TV report via news9, then check out “Deputy loses it on retired Marine who was taping her entire meltdown.”