"May be held in contempt"? I seems to me that he has shown nothing but contempt from his very first appearance. He flatly refused to turn over his own emails, just said "no I won't" and suffered no consequences. No wonder he fells contempt for the congressional hearings, I'm feeling that myself. They have several ATF people who have clearly lied to congress and walked away. They have proof that several people cannot deny knowledge of all the details of F&F but have taken no action against them. They demand that Holder should punish those responsible but congress also takes no action. The hearings are just a political melodrama with no real drama at all. Issa keeps saying he intends to get to the bottom of this but just keeps spinning his wheels and going no where. Obviously he enjoys the spotlight and has no desire to wrap things up.
We know that real and serious crimes have been committed, why is there no criminal investigation? The lower lever bureaucrats know they have nothing to fear from the DOJ so long as they continue to stonewall. The worst that may happen to them is to loose their jobs and move on to better paying jobs already arranged for them.
In a real criminal investigation those people like Hope Macallister, David Voth, William Newell and Dennis Burke, people who cannot possibly deny knowledge of the actual strategy and effect of F&F would be arrested, charged with every violation of the law that can be deemed to perhaps fit and held for extradition to Mexico. Then and only then would they have incentive to cut a deal to testify against their bosses. But that will never happen from congressional investigations or DOJ Inspector General investigations. The only hope of justice for Brian Terry's family rests with the Arizona prosecutor.

Given that in operation Fast & Furious there was no attempt to track the guns and the Mexican authorities were never informed it is obvious that no legitimate law enforcement objective could possibly have been achieved. The stated objective of "tracking the guns to the bigger fish" is obvious hog wash. So what was the intended purpose? We know they produced a "flow chart", a map with arrows from the point of gun sale to the point of recovery by police. Was that flow chart indeed the only intended result? Are they actually so irresponsible and callous in their disregard for public safety? If so, this goes way beyond stupid and incompetent, it is blatantly criminal.