Washington D.C.--This won't be the first time, and it won't be the last time. Why bother when the Judiciary committees already have Sampson, Gonzales' former-chief of staff? I worried when I saw this headline at yahoo, but felt relieved when it was only this underling, one Monica Goodling. When you have to plead the Fifth, you're basically cornered.
Goodling, who is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison, took a leave of absence this month. She was subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee along with several of Gonzales' other top aides. There have been questions about whether Goodling and others misinformed Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty about the firings just before he testified before the Senate committee in February. Dowd said that a senior Justice Department official had told a member of the Senate committee that he was misled by Goodling and others before testifying. (AP, 03.26.2007)
Yep, cornered. Somehow, I think she'll be getting a subpoena from the House next, there will be a lot more legal-wrangling, and she'll finally capitulate when confronted with other evidence. For this, if it's found to be true that she aided-and-abetted Gonzales and the White House in a criminal conspiracy, she's going to want to talk-and-talk-and-talk. They won't be able to shut her up.
What's interesting is that in other searches by this site, Goodling is described as, " MONICA GOODLING, SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE JUSTICE." This is from a March, 26th, 2004 DOJ press-release on the partial-birth abortion ban:
As President Bush has said, this law ‘will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America.’ The Justice Department will be working hard during these trials to fulfill the goal of the President and Congress to protect innocent new life from the practice of partial-birth abortion. (DOJ.gov, 03.26.2004)
So, it could be nothing, but it appears they were shifting Monica around to various-jobs at the DOJ, at least since 2004. Surely, it's more cronyism--perhaps her daddy gave the Bush campaign several-hundred thousand, or there was an endowment given to the GOP. It bears investigation, but it appears that the Senate is going to put the pressure on her and that we're all going to learn a lot about Monica Goodling in the next-few-weeks. Do you think she ever lied as a "spokeswoman"?
Like other Bush hacks, she seems to wear a lot of hats that don't entirely correspond with her titles, and she's doing considerable multi-tasking. It begs the question of whether the Bush administration has been attempting to construct a parallel-government within our own through their own system of networking that began before their occupation of our federal bureaucracy. Saturday brought these facts to everyone's attention, from 283 more-pages released from the DOJ the day-before. It all began when Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Ca.) sent a letter of concern over the firing of US Attorney Carol Lam, the prosecutor who nailed former GOP-rep Randy "Duke" Cunningham:
The day after Seidel reported Feinstein's concerns to Justice officials including White House liaison Monica Goodling, Goodling fired off an e-mail to aides with the subject line "I hear there is a letter from Feinstein on Carol Lam a year or two ago." "I need it ASAP. Can you pull from your system ASAP and e-mail to me?" says the e-mail. It's not clear from the documents what letter Goodling was referring to. Aides sent her a Feinstein communication about an abduction case involving someone with Philippines citizenship, but Goodling replied, "This isn't the right letter. Please keep looking." (AP, 03.24.2007)
It's thought that the letter might contain criticism of Lam's region for too-few prosecutions, so Goodling was possibly hunting for ammunition to use against Feinstein. If this is so, it's an incredible and illegal misuse of the federal bureaucracy, though it would hardly be the first time.Today, Arianna Huffington suggested impeaching Gonzales as AG--a fine idea! It would hasten the flow-of-evidence in the investigations, and bring us all closer to ridding-ourselves of a constitutional crisis that has been with us since 2000. Pleading the Fifth means the end is near for you. That "leave of absence" will be permanent. Bank on it.
Monica Goodling in 2004: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/March/04_opa_189.htm
AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070326/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/fired_prosecutors
AP March, 24th, 2007: http://www.sacbee.com/114/story/143541.html
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