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Holder to Rep. Lamar Smith: ?Be Nice to Me After January?

By Andrew Ramonas

The top Republican on the House panel that has jurisdiction over the Justice Department told GOP members in Texas on Sunday that Attorney General Eric Holder asked him for a favor while they were at a football game near D.C. last week.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he was walking around the perimeter of FedEx Field before the Cowboys-Redskins games on Sept. 12 when he spotted Holder. They exchanged a few words, and then the Attorney General “grabs both of my arms,” the Republican congressman said, according to a video posted on YouTube by TexasGOPvote.com.

“Lamar, will you be nice to me after January?” Holder asked Smith.

Smith shared his encounter with the Attorney General after talking about the “better than 50-50 chance” that Republicans will take control of the House. The House member told the people gathered at the Republican Party of Bexar County Annual Chairman’s Barbecue and Rally in San Antonio that his story about Holder “speaks volumes.”

A DOJ spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Smith would likely become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee if Republicans took control of the House in January. The congressman said probably the biggest benefit of a Republican controlled House would be the ability to “issue subpoenas and find out what this administration has been doing that the American people don’t know.”

Full post as published by Main Justice on September 20, 2010 (boomark / email).