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BOSTON, MA– One day after his campaign helped force the resignation of one senior member of Sen. Obama’s VP selection team, Sen. McCain took aim today at Eric Holder–another member of that group .

“I think it is a matter of record that Mr. Holder recommended the pardoning of Mr. (Marc) Rich. And all those things will be taken into consideration by the media and the American people, especially when you are entrusting individuals with one of the most important decisions that a presidential candidate can make before that individual is elected and that is who the running mate is,” McCain told reporters a press conference Wednesday, referencing Holder’s role at the Department of Justice in the Clinton administrations controversial pardoning of the financier.

His call comes less than 24 hours after Jim Johnson’s resignation as an Obama VP vetter, who came under scrutiny for loans he received from Countrywide–a shady mortgage lender that Obama criticized on the trail.

But McCain deferred comment today when asked about Johnson’s resignation, despite calling his involvement in Obama’s campaign a “contradiction” on Monday.

“On the resignations, or should-be resignations, I think people in the media and observers will make a decision as to whether these people, individuals should be part of Senator Obama’s campaign,” McCain said.

Following Jim Johnson’s resignation this afternoon, the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign released statements questioning Obama’s judgment.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds:

“Jim Johnson’s resignation raises serious questions about Barack Obama’s judgment. Selecting the vice presidential nominee is the most important decision a presidential candidate can make and one even Barack Obama has said will ’signal how I want to operate my presidency.’ By entrusting this process to a man who has now been forced to step down because of questionable loans, the American people have reason to question the judgment of a candidate who has shown he will only make the right call when under pressure from the news media. America can’t afford a president who flip-flops on key questions in the course of 24 hours. That’s not change we can believe in.”

RNC spokesman Alex Conant takes it one step further questioning why another VP vetter, Eric Holder, who has ties to the Marc Rich pardon scandal, remains with Team Obama:

“If Barack Obama is concerned his campaign’s ties to special interests are distracting from his VP search and message, why is Eric Holder still on his search committee? Why is registered federal lobbyist Steve Farber leading the convention for Obama’s supposedly ‘lobbyist-free’ campaign? Obama’s hypocritical attacks show he can’t stand up to his own standard - and that he just isn’t ready to make change.”

But Camp Obama is having none of it, calling out their GOP rival for it’s recent issues related to lobbying ties. Obama spokesman Bill Burton’s response to the response:

“We don’t need any lectures from a campaign that waited fifteen months to purge the lobbyists from their staff, and only did so because they said it was a ‘perception problem. It’s too bad their campaign is still rife with lobbyist influence and doesn’t see a similar ‘perception problem’ with the man currently running their own vice presidential selection process, a prominent DC lobbyist whose firm has represented Exxon and a top Enron executive, or their campaign chair and John McCain’s top economic adviser Carly Fiorina, who presided over thousands of layoffs at Hewlett Packard while receiving a $21 million severance package and $650,000 in mortgage assistance.”

146 days until election day everybody…..

UPDATE: Tucker Bounds had one more volley to fire off. His response to Burton’s response to his original response:

“We don’t need any school yard taunts from an embattled Obama campaign that is flailing under the light of its own hypocrisy.”

Jim Johnson, one of Sen. Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetters has stepped down after a tumultuous few days as controversy swirled over his association, and personal loans deal with  Countrywide Financial Group, a mortgage lender that has received criticism for being at the center of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Senator Obama released a statement on Johnson’s departure:

” Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice my presidential nominee. So he has made a decision to step aside that I accept. We have a very good selection process under way, and I am confident that it will produce  a number of highly qualified candidates for me to choose from in the weeks ahead. I remain grateful to Jim for his service and his efforts in the process.”

The story of Johnson’s $ 1.7 million total loans was first broken by the Wall Street Journal, and had created a maelstrom of Republican criticism for his connection to the financial group, because Obama had been very critical of subprime lenders, and specifically Countrywide Financial.

 ***UPDATE:AMBINDER HAS JOHNSON STATEMENT****

According to today’s Washington Post, Obama’s veep vetter Jim Johnson is linked to an accounting scandal at his former company, Fannie Mae. The newspaper reported this morning that Johnson “was the beneficiary of accounting in which Fannie Mae’s earnings were manipulated so that executives could earn larger bonuses. The accounting manipulation for 1998 resulted in the maximum payouts to Fannie Mae’s senior executives — $1.9 million in Johnson’s case — when the company’s performance that year would have otherwise resulted in no bonuses at all, according to reports in 2004 and 2006 by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.”

While Obama told reporters yesterday that, “I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages. …These aren’t folks who are working for me. They’re not people who I have assigned to a particular job in a future administration,” Republicans have seized the story. “It’s preposterous for Senator Obama to claim that the leader of his VP selection committee isn’t working for him….Obama is in a state of denial,” a McCain spokesman stated yesterday.

Today Obama surrogate John Kerry weighed in, when asked on a conference call if he’d advise Senator Obama to retain Johnson’s services.

“Let me just say first of all, I would never reveal what I do or don’t recommend to either a sitting president or somebody running for president, I think those conversations are personal and private and they belong that way,” Kerry replied. Of course the ‘04 Democratic nominee himself utilized Johnson’s services while vetting his own VP short list.

The ex-candidate called the controversy one of those “Washington grab stories” about someone who is performing a “voluntary function” for Obama. Kerry then praised Johnson for the role he performed in 2004. “He’s proven himself somebody who has a great skill at gathering that information, keeping it personal and private. You will recall there were zero leaks from my process. No person involved in it felt upset or violated by the process…he did an outstanding job in that capacity and I have no complaint about what he did for me,” Kerry said.

At a media availability in St. Louis this morning, Barack Obama told reporters that while he has railed against Countrywide Financial Corporation on the campaign trail, it’s OK to have VP vetter Jim Johnson as a volunteer. Johnson came under criticism yesterday when it was learned that he may have gotten favorable loan rates from the embattled Countrywide, whose top executives were accused in March of exacerbating the home mortgage crisis.

“First of all, I am not vetting my VP search committee for their mortgages,” Obama began.

“But shouldn’t you?” a reporter interjected.

“Well no - it becomes sort of a - I mean this is a game that can be played - everybody you know, who is anybody who is tangentially related to our campaign I think Is going to have a whole host of relationships. I would have to hire the vetter to vet the vetters. I mean at some point you know we just asked people to do their assignments,” he explained.

Johnson has a “discreet” task, Obama said that’s done on a volunteer basis. “These aren’t folks who are working for me. They are not people you know who I have assigned to a job in the future administration and ultimately my assumption is that this is a discreet task that they are going to performing for me in the next two months,” he said, giving Johnson’s relationship with Countrywide and another Obama veep vetter, Eric Holder’s involvement in the Marc Rich scandal a pass.

Just four days prior, Obama told reporters on board his campaign plane that “there is no decision that’s gonna be more important before the November election.” According to Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod, Johnson’s potential loan problem won’t affect his vetting duties. “The job he’s doing has nothing to do with any of these issues. It’s essentially an executive screening function that he’s done before, so you know, there’s nothing that would get in the way of his doing that,” Axelrod told FOX News yesterday.

Of the Countrywide scandal that broke a few months ago, Obama said at the time in a statement, “We should be reprimanding them, not rewarding them. Rewarding their bad behavior just encourages others to pursue the same kinds of irresponsible practices that led us into this financial mess in the first place.”

Team Obama hit back today after McCain told FOX that Barack Obama has shown a “contradiction” by talking tough and not following through by naming Jim Johnson as the head of his veep search team. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that Johnson may have received preferential loan treatment from Countrywide, a mortgage company Obama has railed against on the stump.

Here’s the Obama camp’s response:

“It’s the height of hypocrisy for the McCain campaign to try and make this an issue when John Green, one of John McCain’s top advisors, lobbied for Ameriquest, which was one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders and a key player in the mortgage crisis. As President, Senator Obama will crack down on fraudulent lenders and bring real relief to Americans struggling in the grip of the housing crisis—the kind of change that works for the American people.” – Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

The McCain campaign in turn responded that Green in fact resigned from his position at Ameriquest “months ago and isn’t a lobbyist in accordance with our policy.” They stressed that Green is a volunteer who has “zero role in policy development,” and concluded, “It’s a totally false analogy” to compare Green to Johnson.

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WASHINGTON, DC — Sen. John McCain attacked his Democratic rival Monday for contradicting himself by naming an official to his campaign who allegedly received preferential loan treatment from a controversial mortgage company that Sen. Barack Obama has been criticizing on the trail.

“I think it suggests a bit of a contradiction talking about how his campaign is gonna be not associated with people like that. Clearly he is very much associated with that,” McCain told Fox News’ Carl Cameron in an interview today, referring to Jim Johnson who Obama has tapped to head up his VP search process.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Johnson received more than $7 million in loans from Countrywide Financial, at least two of which were at below-market rate, stemming from a relationship with the company’s CEO, Angelo Mozilo.

See more of Carl Cameron’s interview with the presumptive GOP nominee tonight on Special Report.

See full interview below, where McCain also says an Obama presidency would be a second term for President Carter.

PART I and  PART II