Via CNN: Justice aide who took the Fifth to testify in attorney firings
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ former White House liaison is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, speaking out for the first time on her role in the controversial U.S. attorney firings.Monica Goodling, who served as Gonzales’ senior counsel, is the only key official who has not yet testified about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
Her lawyers initially kept her from testifying, saying she would cite her Fifth Amendment right to protection from self-incrimination, but she will now be granted immunity.
We should find out if the asserting of those rights was the result of simple panic, or was because she had reason to need the protection.
At a minimum, more information will be helpful–although I predict right now that there will be wildly different interpretations of her testimony, based largely on ideological differences of the interpreters.
At a minimum, it sounds as if Ms. Goodling may be in over her head:
Transcripts released late Tuesday revealed Goodling sobbed uncontrollably at great length when the controversy began to swirl around her in March.In a previously undisclosed House Judiciary Committee interview, a veteran career Justice Department attorney testified Goodling had come to his office and couldn’t stop crying.
“She proceeded for the next, it seemed like forever, but it was probably only about 30 or 45 minutes, to bawl her eyes out and say, ‘All I ever wanted to do was serve this president and this administration and this department,’ ” Associate Deputy Attorney David Margolis said.
“My goal was to try to calm her, so I gave her some advice to calm her — calm her down, which didn’t work,” Margolis said.
“I tried to make her laugh, which didn’t work, and to give her some personal advice, which she didn’t take,” Margolis said.
One hopes that she is better able to compose herself before the Senate today.
Technorati Tags: Monica Goodling, USAs, US Attorneys, fired attorneys, DoJ, Department of Justice
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May 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 am
“One hopes that she is better able to compose herself before the Senate today.”
We can’t deny C-SPAN and the video weblogs this “precious” moment.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:20 am
This is another tragic case of a well-intentioned but misguided Christian falling into the Bush propaganda trap. These “yes” men and women have adopted an “ends justify the means” logic as justification for circumventing the Constitution. When the chickens come home to roost these underlings are finally forced to come to grips with the reality that they are serviing a fatally flawed, incompetent President who is operating in conflict with God’s plan for humanity. (According to the Bible man is to rely on his Creator - not remake a political system to their liking or promote a candidate who claims that God told him to run for the Presidency.) Then comes the breakdown.
The mega-ministers who were paid off by the Bush Administration (with money, access and fame) have propagated this big lie to innocents like Ms. Goodling. The Country would be better served if the pressure was redirected at them. Cristian ministers are mandated to teach the Word - not get involved in politics.
For the good of this Nation, we need to do everything possible to hold Bush, Rove and Cheney accountable for their actions - leading the Country into a manufactured foreign invasion and occupation of Iraq, defeating Constitutional separation-of-powers safeguards by staffing judicial and law enforcement agencies with political lackeys, and rendering Government ineffectual through shameless politicalization. Let’s hope, for the sake of our Country, that the debacle of the Bush Administration ends with W. and his cronies disgraced and in tears.