DOJ Monica Goodling testimony on C-Span 3

Gonzales Tried to Review Events in Firings
Gonzales Tried to Review Events in Firings
By Laurie Kellman
The Associated Press
Thursday 24 May 2007

Washington - A former Justice Department official told House investigators Wednesday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to review his version of the prosecutor firings with her at a time when lawmakers were homing in on conflicting accounts.

"It made me a little uncomfortable," Monica Goodling, Gonzales' former White House liaison, said of her conversation with the attorney general just before she took a leave of absence in March. "I just did not know if it was appropriate for us to both be discussing our recollections of what had happened."

In a daylong appearance before the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee, Goodling, 33, also acknowledged crossing a legal line herself by considering the party affiliations of candidates for career prosecutor jobs - a violation of law.

nd she said that Gonzales' No. 2, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, knew more than he let on when he did not disclose to Congress the extent of White House involvement in deciding which prosecutors to fire. McNulty strongly denied that he withheld information, saying Goodling did not fully brief him about the White House's involvement.

Goodling's dramatic story about her final conversation with Gonzales brought questions from panel members about whether he had tried to align her story with his and whether he was truthful in his own congressional testimony.

Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that he didn't know the answers to some questions about the firings because he was steering clear of aides - such as Goodling - who were likely to be questioned.

"I haven't talked to witnesses because of the fact that I haven't wanted to interfere with this investigation and department investigations," Gonzales told the panel.

Goodling said for the first time Wednesday that Gonzales did review the story of the firings with her at an impromptu meeting she requested in his office a few days before she took a leave of absence.

"I was somewhat paralyzed. I was distraught, and I felt like I wanted to make a transfer," Goodling recalled during a packed hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

Gonzales, she said, indicated he would think about Goodling's request.

"He then proceeded to say, 'Let me tell you what I can remember,' and he laid out for me his general recollection … of some of the process" of the firings, Goodling added. When Gonzales finished, "he asked me if I had any reaction to his iteration."

Goodling said the conversation made her uncomfortable because she was aware that she, Gonzales and others would be called by Congress to testify.

"Was the attorney general trying to shake your recollection?" asked Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.

Goodling paused.

"I just did not know if it was a conversation we should be having and so I just didn't say anything," she replied. She added that she thought Gonzales was trying to be kind.

Democrats pounced.

"It certainly has the flavor of trying to get their stories straight," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the committee.

Gonzales' resignation is being demanded by Democrats and some Republicans in part over the firings. Bush is standing by his longtime friend, but Democrats have pressed ahead with their investigation, contending the firings may have been an attempt to exploit a loophole in the Patriot Act to install GOP loyalists as prosecutors without Senate confirmation.
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Goodling Says She "Crossed the Line"
By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane
The Washington Post
Thursday 24 May 2007

Ex-aide criticizes Gonzales, Justice officials while admitting bias in hiring.

former senior aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales leveled serious new accusations against him and other Justice Department officials yesterday, including an "uncomfortable" attempt by Gonzales to review his account of the firings of a group of U.S. attorneys as Congress was intensifying its investigation of the issue.

Monica M. Goodling, who resigned last month as Gonzales's senior counselor and White House liaison, also told the House Judiciary Committee yesterday that she "crossed the line" by using political criteria in hiring a wide array of career professionals at Justice, including looking up political donations by some applicants.

In a day-long hearing that afforded her immunity from prosecution, Goodling minimized her role in the controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys last year and joined a long line of Justice officials who say they were not responsible for adding names to the lists of those to be dismissed.

But Goodling's appearance also opened broad new avenues of inquiry for congressional Democrats, who think Gonzales has presided over intensifying political meddling at the Justice Department. It also provided fresh evidence of the deepening rifts between current and former Justice officials, who have increasingly turned on one another since the prosecutor firings.

Goodling, 33, alleged that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty was "not fully candid" with Congress about his knowledge of White House involvement in the firings. McNulty, who tendered his resignation last week, disputed that.

Under intensive questioning from Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), Goodling also described a mid-March meeting with Gonzales that began as a discussion of her future at Justice but ended with talk about the U.S. attorneys' firings.

"Let me tell you what I can remember," he said, according to her account.

"He laid out for me his general recollection . . . of some of the process" of the firings and then asked "if I had any reaction to his iteration," Goodling said.

She said the conversation made her "a little uncomfortable" because she knew that she, Gonzales and others would be asked to testify before Congress.

"Do you think, Ms. Goodling, the attorney general was trying to shape your recollection?" Davis asked.

Goodling paused, then said: "I just did not know if it was a conversation we should be having, and so I just didn't say anything."

She added that she thought Gonzales was trying "to be kind."

Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month that he had not discussed the details of the firings with other potential witnesses, "in order to preserve the integrity" of ongoing investigations by Congress and by the Justice Department.

Justice officials played down Goodling's account and noted in a statement that the meeting occurred before the start of an inquiry by the Justice Department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility.

"The attorney general has never attempted to influence or shape the testimony or public statements of any witness in this matter, including Ms. Goodling," spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "The statements made by the attorney general during this meeting were intended only to comfort her in a very difficult period of her life."

Goodling alleged that McNulty provided Congress with "incomplete or inaccurate" testimony on several points in February despite being briefed about the issues beforehand. She also alleged that McNulty barred her from attending a closed-door Senate briefing because he feared that her presence would cause lawmakers to question whether the White House was involved in the firings.

"Despite my and others' best effort, the deputy's public testimony was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects," Goodling said. "I believe the deputy was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision."

McNulty, who will leave Justice later this summer, disputed the allegations in a statement: "I testified truthfully at the Feb. 6, 2007, hearing based on what I knew at that time. Ms. Goodling's characterization of my testimony is wrong and not supported by the extensive record of documents and testimony already provided to Congress."

McNulty and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General William E. Moschella have told lawmakers they did not receive adequate information from Goodling, who participated in briefings before they each testified to Congress.

Goodling's testimony about hiring practices amounts to a dramatic public admission that she and other Justice aides routinely used potentially illegal criteria in deciding whom to hire as career prosecutors, immigration judges and in other nonpolitical government jobs.

"I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions and may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions," she testified. "I regret these mistakes."

Under questioning from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Goodling repeatedly declined to estimate how many times she had considered political affiliations in career hiring decisions. Johnson finally asked whether it was more or fewer than 50 cases.

"I don't think that I could have done it more than 50 times, but I don't know," she replied.

Goodling, a former opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee, revealed that prospective hires for the immigration courts, which are administered by Justice, were among those who may have been subjected to political litmus tests.

She said that D. Kyle Sampson, then Gonzales's chief of staff, had told her she did not have to abide by restrictions on weighing political affiliations in those positions. The department's civil division later raised objections and froze hiring for the immigration courts in December, she said.

Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said yesterday that reforms were implemented and hiring has resumed.

In addition to the inquiry into the prosecutor firings, the department's inspector general and professional responsibility offices have begun to investigate whether Goodling may have broken federal laws or internal rules by weighing political affiliations in career hiring decisions.

Goodling offered a few new details about some of the U.S. attorneys who were fired, saying that she had recommended removing Daniel Bogden of Nevada and Paul K. Charlton of Arizona in January 2006. They were included on a draft list at that time but were not passed on to the White House as candidates for firing until later in the year.

House Republicans stood steadfastly behind Goodling, even as she repeatedly apologized for weighing political affiliation.

"There not only is no evidence of wrongdoing, but there is no allegation of any wrongdoing on your part," Rep. Steve King (Iowa) told her.
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Staff writer Amy Goldstein and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

Goodling May Have Broken Law in Some DOJ Hirings
Goodling May Have Broken Law in Some DOJ Hirings, Testimony Reveals
By William Fisher
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 23 May 2007

Monica Goodling, the former White House liaison for the Justice Department, confirmed Wednesday during testimony before a House Judiciary Committee hearing that she used a political litmus test in screening applicants for hire as Justice Department employees in what appears to be a violation of numerous federal laws.

Goodling testified that she never discussed the firings of eight US attorneys with White House Political Adviser Karl Rove or former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, nor did she recommend additions to or deletions from the list of political appointees to be terminated. She also said she did not know who compiled the list, but admitted she "may have gone too far" in questioning prospective career applicants about their political affiliations.

In a hearing room that appeared to contain almost as many media representatives as audience members, Goodling said she "may have asked inappropriate political questions" of applicants for civil service posts at the Department of Justice in an effort to implement the priorities of the Bush Administration.

She said, "I crossed the line," with regard to applicants for civil service positions, "But I didn't mean to." She added that she simply "wanted to make sure" that job applicants were "ideologically compatible" with the administration. She said her interviews with job applicants often included questions about who they voted for in the 2004 election.

Goodling told the committee that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who resigned earlier this month, may have misled Congress in his Senate testimony earlier this month by omitting facts she had presented to him.

She also asserted that she believed the central role in the forced resignations of the eight US attorneys (USAs) was played by Kyle Sampson, who resigned as chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after the firestorm caused by the USA terminations.

Goodling was accompanied at the hearing by three of her attorneys, led by high-profile Washington lawyer John Dowd. Dowd has said that Congressional Democrats had already made up their minds about his client's role in the firings.

Goodling originally refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution to avoid the possibility of incriminating herself. The House Committee eventually granted her immunity, opening the way for today's testimony.

The firings of the US attorneys became one of Washington's hottest political issues after earlier testimony in which former Deputy Attorney General McNulty told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the terminations were based on "performance-related" issues.

That testimony was later contradicted by AG Gonzales, who apologized to senators for what he characterized as the mishandling of the affair, but insisted that the president has the right to name political appointees who are committed to carrying out the administration's agenda.

Many legislators said they have been troubled by the manner in which the USAs were asked for their resignations, and also by charges that administration officials may have broken the law by applying political litmus tests to prospective non-political job applicants, who would be covered by the protections of laws governing the Civil Service.

These legislators, mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans as well, have been trying to trace these issues back to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, and to then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers. Congress has issued subpoenas demanding testimony and documents from Rove, but the White House has refused, invoking "executive privilege" in what could become a case headed for a long court battle.

A key question in the Rove-Miers issue is whether either official sent or received emails using an account belonging to the Republican National Committee (RNC) instead of the White House. If they did so, it could be a violation of the Presidential Records Act, which mandates the preservation of all communications involving White House employees.

The White House has admitted that some officials did in fact use RNC email accounts for political, non-official communications, and has acknowledged that a number of such emails appear to be missing.

In her testimony today, Goodling repeatedly portrayed herself as an implementer of policies crafted by more senior officials. She said she lacked the authority to carry out her own decisions, and said her principal role was to make recommendations to others.

In one case, however, she acknowledged delaying the appointment of a prospective career prosecutor sought by Jeffrey A. Taylor, interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, reportedly because the candidate was too "liberal" for the non-political position.

The candidate was Seth Adam Meinero, a Howard University law school graduate who had worked on civil rights cases at the Environmental Protection Agency and had served as a special assistant prosecutor in Taylor's office.

Meinero was eventually hired at Taylor's insistence, but the issue led to a Justice Department investigation of whether Goodling improperly weighed political affiliation in her reviews of applicants for non-political positions. In another case, according to emails and other documents obtained by Congress, Goodling also played a central role in arranging for the appointment of Tim Griffin, a former RNC official and aide to Rove, as the US attorney in Little Rock.

She also met last summer with two New Mexico Republicans who complained about then-US Attorney David C. Iglesias, who was later fired. In another case, she single-handedly blocked the dismissal of a North Carolina prosecutor who, for more than a year, had been on the list of candidates to be fired.

Goodling's critics have described her as a divisive figure at the Justice Department since her arrival in 2002, with a reputation for a mercurial temperament and having "sharp elbows" in her dealings with career employees.

Goodling and former AG Chief of Staff Sampson "knew politics, not law," said Bruce Fein, who served as a senior Justice official during the Reagan administration. "This extent [of] neophytes running the department is highly irregular," he added.

Goodling is a 1999 graduate of Regent University law school in Virginia Beach, which describes itself as a "Christian university." Founded by evangelist Pat Robertson, the university's web site claims that 150 of its students have served in the Bush administration. Goodling told the committee today that she attended a Christian university "because I wanted to obtain justice through public service."

Goodling, who has six months of prosecutorial experience, was one of a small group of young aides to AG Gonzales to whom he reportedly granted extensive authority and autonomy in their dealings with seasoned Justice Department lawyers.

According to the transcript of an interview with a staffer from the House Judiciary Committee, Goodling is said to have told a senior Justice official shortly before she quit, "All I ever wanted to do was serve this president, this administration, this department."

The furor over the leadership of the Department of Justice has caused Senate Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, to push for passage of a resolution demanding Gonzales's resignation. Such a resolution would merely express the "sense of the Senate" and would have no standing in law, since the president is always free to hire and fire Executive Branch officials to whom he gives political appointments.

President Bush, whose relationship with Gonzales dates back to Bush's campaign for Governor of Texas, has said the attorney general has his complete confidence.
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William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and in many other parts of the world for the US State Department and USAID for the past thirty years. He began his work life as a journalist for newspapers and for The Associated Press in Florida. Go to The World According to Bill Fisher for more.

She's hot.

White House hired GOP Consultant re US Attorney Scandal
White House Coordinated With GOP Consultant on US Attorney Scandal
By Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Tuesday 22 May 2007

Emails released late Monday by the US Justice Department show the White House hired a well-known Republican operative to handle damage control in the aftermath of the US attorney scandal.

Mark McKinnon, a heavyweight strategist whose primary company, Maverick Media Inc., did almost $170 million in business with the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign, appears to have been hired by Peter Wehner, director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, which "plans, develops, and coordinates a long-range strategy for achieving presidential priorities," and "conducts research and assists in message development," according to the White House web site. Wehner worked with McKinnon in an official capacity, corresponding through McKinnon's company email account. It is unknown whether McKinnon was paid for his work.

McKinnon also serves as the vice chairman of Public Strategies Inc., a corporate public relations firm that is staffed primarily by political campaign strategists.

In what may prove to be telling advice, McKinnon's PR firm works with clients to "turn risky public situations to their advantage," and advises them to "pay as much attention to issues in the public arena as they do to running their day-to-day business," according to their mission statement. According to the firm's web site, political strategists make excellent public relations consultants because they "have the tenacity to stay the course, not just through Election Day, but well beyond."

The emails clearly show that a request for talking points to respond to a critical column written by Joe Conason of Salon.com, was made by McKinnon as a consultant to the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives: "[...] Do we have something off the shelf on this...?" referring to Conason's article.

White House officials requested information for McKinnon from Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Monica Goodling, former DOJ liaison to the White House. Sampson and Goodling coordinated the official response to the media questions about the firings.

Associate Counsel to the President Christopher Oprison received an email from Goodling with responsive documents for McKinnon. "The relevant talkers and statistics are contained in the attached documents," Goodling wrote. Seemingly concerned about the idea of giving privileged, nonpublic information to a private public relations firm, Oprison responded by asking, "Is any of this material public and can it be disseminated to Mark McKinnon?" Goodling responded to his concern by writing, "It is info we have given to friendlies on the Hill. It can all go."

In response to this new information, Naomi Seligman Steiner, spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said: "This administration has a history of hiring outside consultants at taxpayer expense to provide government officials with public relations advice."

In 2005, during the Bush administration's attempt to privatize Social Security, it was revealed that the administration paid public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard nearly $1.8 million to help trump-up the risks faced by the Social Security system.

The Bush administration also came under fire for hiring the public relations firm Ketchum to coordinate messaging for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As part of a contract agreement between the Department of Education and Ketchum, the popular African-American pundit Armstrong Williams "would regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts and would work with African-American newspapers to place stories and commentary on NCLB." Williams was paid $240,000 for his advocacy of the program.

At the time, the senior Democrat on the education committee, Rep. George Miller (D-California), told USA Today that the contract was "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that was "probably illegal."

This revelation comes at a sensitive time for the administration. Congressmen from both parties have called for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales because of the shifting and sometimes contradictory explanations for the firings given by Gonzales and other DOJ officials.

Monica Goodling is scheduled to testify with immunity before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Prior to her limited guarantee of immunity, Goodling invoked her Fifth Amendment right and refused to testify for fear of self-incrimination. Her testimony could shed light on questions that have yet to be answered in the attorney firing investigation, because she was a central figure in the firings and the subsequent public relations struggle.

Over the weekend, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), told CBS that he thought Gonzales may resign prior to a "no-confidence" vote in the Senate. The vote will probably not occur before the Memorial Day recess.

Appearing with Specter, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) said, "I'm very worried about the department. I think its credibility is crumbling.... And I think the only thing that can really change that is a new attorney general." Specter predicted that a "sizable number" of Republicans would join Democrats in a vote of "no-confidence," a historical rarity in the US.
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Matt Renner is a reporter for Truthout.

Aide testifies Gonzales discussed firings of U.S. attorneys
Aide testifies that Gonzales discussed firings of U.S. attorneys
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
5/24/07

WASHINGTON - A former senior aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told lawmakers Wednesday that Gonzales had sought to go over with her his recollections about the firings of U.S. attorneys after a congressional investigation was under way.

Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's former senior counsel and liaison to the White House, told the House Judiciary Committee that the one-on-one conversation in Gonzales' office in mid-March made her "uncomfortable" and that she thought it might be inappropriate for them to compare notes when both might be asked to testify.

Goodling answered "no" when Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., asked her directly, "Do you think the attorney general was trying to shape your recollection?" She said, "I just did not know if it was a conversation that we should be having."

Lawmakers said her disclosure was important nonetheless because it seemed to contradict Gonzales' testimony to Congress under oath that he couldn't answer some details about the firings because he'd had to avoid discussing certain details with his staff in order to avoid any perception that he was compromising congressional and two internal departmental investigations.

In a statement late Wednesday, the Justice Department said Gonzales "has never attempted to influence or shape the testimony or public statements of any witness in this matter, including Ms. Goodling."

The meeting with his aide was only intended to "comfort her in a very difficult period of her life," Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman, said in the statement.

Roehrkasse also said that the conversation took place before the two internal investigations were launched. Congressional inquiries, however, were well underway.

Goodling's disclosure capped hours of questions that she was compelled to answer because of a court-approved order granting her immunity from prosecution for what she told Congress under oath.

She'd previously refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against incriminating herself.

Goodling told lawmakers that she was largely out of the loop in the strategy to fire nine U.S. attorneys last year.

"I did not hold the keys to the kingdom, as some have suggested," she said, adding that she didn't know how deeply White House political adviser Karl Rove was involved in the strategy or who decided which U.S. attorneys should be replaced and why.

"I was not the primary White House contact for purposes of the development or approval of the U.S. attorney-replacement plan," she said.

Congressional investigators want to know whether the unusual replacement of the administration's own U.S. attorneys was connected to corruption probes or to Republicans' desires to force voter-fraud prosecutions in order to diminish Democratic turnout.

Lawmakers hoped Goodling's testimony would yield information that they can't get as long as the White House refuses to make Rove and other officials available for questions under oath.

Goodling said she knew of no improper reasons for the firings.

But she acknowledged an important aspect of the probe, saying she'd "crossed the lines" by applying political litmus tests when hiring career professionals.

Goodling said she'd sought to block or delay the hirings of several applicants for assistant U.S. attorneys and immigration judges if she thought their politics might not best serve the administration.

She also acknowledged researching the political backgrounds of many of them and in some cases their campaign contributions.

Lawmakers said such political interference appeared to violate not only department policy but also the federal Hatch Act, which prohibits some partisan activity by government employees.

"I believe I crossed the lines, but I didn't mean to," Goodling said.

She blamed outgoing Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty for misleading Congress in February about the firings. She denied withholding information from McNulty as he prepared his testimony and said he'd ignored information she gave him.

McNulty issued a response saying his Feb. 6 testimony was truthful "based on what I knew at that time" and that Goodling's characterization of his testimony "is wrong."

Goodling, who resigned April 7, told lawmakers that the "uncomfortable" exchange with Gonzales took place just before she went on leave in mid-March. Feeling "paralyzed" by the controversy over the firings, she'd gone to Gonzales to ask him for a transfer to a different office.

He told her he would think about it, she recalled. "He then proceeded to say, `Let me tell you what I can remember,' and he laid out for me his general recollection of some of the process regarding the replacement of U.S. attorneys. He laid out a little bit of it and he asked me if I had any reaction."

By Goodling's account, the conversation would have occurred within days of the resignation of Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, and a news conference in which Gonzales said he'd had little knowledge of the firings and had played only a marginal role in the terminations, which he said were all performance-related.

That claim contradicted the strong performance evaluations that most of the fired prosecutors had received, and documentation that former Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins was pushed out to give the job to Tim Griffin, a former Republican Party opposition researcher and Rove protege.

Goodling said Gonzales "just said that he thought that everybody that was on the list was on the list for a performance-related reason . . . that he really thought that Mr. Cummins was on the list because there was a performance reason there, too."

Goodling, 33, is a former Republican Party opposition researcher and religious conservative who graduated from televangelist Pat Robertson's Regent University law school. Critics have charged that she allowed her ideological leanings to guide her personnel moves.

The Justice Department has said that it's also investigating her hiring practices.

Witness for the Prosecutors
May 24, 2007
New York Times Editorial
Witness for the Prosecutors

It would have been naïve to think that Monica Goodling, a right-wing true believer and onetime Republican opposition researcher, was going to blow the whistle on the United States attorney scandal. But Ms. Goodling made some disturbing admissions yesterday, even as she strained to present every fact in the most favorable light to her Bush administration allies and claimed convenient memory lapses. Ms. Goodling admitted to politicizing the Justice Department in ways that certainly seem illegal; she made clear that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied at a critical point in the investigation; and she gave Congress all the reason it needs to compel Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, to testify about what they know.

In her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Ms. Goodling removed all doubt about whether partisan politics infected the Justice Department's treatment of federal prosecutors. She admitted that she investigated the party affiliations, and even campaign contributions, of applicants for prosecutor, and other nonpolitical jobs. "I know I crossed the line," she said of her actions, which may have violated federal law. Her admission that partisan politics was used to hire people only makes it more likely that it was also used to fire people.

Ms. Goodling appeared to be straining to make her testimony helpful to Mr. Gonzales, but when backed into a corner, she conceded that he had lied about his role in the scandal. At a press conference in March, he said he had not seen any memos or participated in any discussions about the firings. But Ms. Goodling made clear that he was briefed and attended a key meeting.

Ms. Goodling was an odd witness. She was one of the most powerful officials in the Justice Department, but claimed to be a minor player who barely knew what was going on around her. "At heart, I am a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing and tries to treat people kindly along the way," said the 33-year-old Ms. Goodling. She presented herself as an innocent, yet testified only under immunity and admitted to apparently illegal practices.

The only people odder than Ms. Goodling were the House Republicans who rushed to praise her. Even in these partisan times, a Justice Department official who admitted to her level of wrongdoing ought to draw bipartisan condemnation.

As with other witnesses, notably Mr. Gonzales, Ms. Goodling's memory lapses were not credible. On questions that made her uncomfortable, the past was a blur. But on others, her recall was remarkable, as when she denied misinforming Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty about the dismissal of the attorneys before he testified to Congress.

Ms. Goodling said she did not know how prosecutors were added to the list of those to be fired. Kyle Sampson, Mr. Gonzales's former chief of staff, and the keeper of the list, has said the same thing. So have Mr. Gonzales and Mr. McNulty. They may think that if no one owns up, the scandal will go away. But since the list was by all accounts a joint Justice Department and White House effort, Congress has no choice but to question under oath the two people who are in the best position to shed light on the mystery: Mr. Rove and Ms. Miers.

Ms. Goodling made clear that the Justice Department was shamefully politicized. Congress needs to find out how far it went, and who was involved. Then it can begin the long and difficult process of trying to restore the department's integrity and reputation.

Here's an interesting point

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/23/goodling-lawyer-wanted-questions-on-gonzales-meeting/

Goodling WANTED to be asked about the meeting with Gonzales that he said didn't happen. Her lawyer ASKED for them to question her on this.

Cycloptichorn

Arthur Davis


Democrat Alabama Representative Artur Davis is turning out to be one of the smartest congressman in Washington. I'm really impressed with him after watching interviews on C-SPAN and other TV sources in addition to his performance during several committee hearings.

http://www.house.gov/arturdavis/

BBB

No wonder Republicans were obsessed with Monica Lewinsky. The seriousness of this isn't even a blip on their delusional radar screen.

Did she try to fire all the minorities? Now that would be serious.

Seriously funny.

Justice Department investigators broaden their inquiry
Justice Department investigators broaden their inquiry
By Margaret Talev and Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is expanding its internal inquiry to look into new allegations that senior department officials improperly filled career jobs based on applicants' Republican or conservative credentials.

In a joint announcement Wednesday, officials at the department's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility said their inquiry now included scrutiny of hiring in the Civil Rights Division, which oversees voting rights.

Politicization of civil service positions could violate department policy or federal law.

Congress is in the midst of its own investigation into whether the ousters of nine U.S. attorneys last year were connected to Republican desires to bring more vote-fraud cases against Democrats in battleground states and whether there was a larger pattern of politicization at the Justice Department.

The Justice Department had acknowledged that its watchdogs are evaluating the propriety of the department's firings of the prosecutors and personnel decisions by Monica Goodling, a former counselor and White House liaison, who told a House of Representatives committee last week that she "crossed the lines" by applying political litmus tests when hiring career professionals.

It couldn't be determined whether the Goodling inquiry will be expanded to include what direction she received from higher-ups within the department or the White House.

The announcement Wednesday, however, indicated that the internal inquiry is looking more broadly at charges of politicization across the department.

In brief letters notifying the House and Senate of their plans, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility, say they're looking into hiring and personnel decisions by Goodling and others along with hiring within the Civil Rights Division, the department's honors program and its summer law-intern program. Neither Fine nor Jarrett returned calls requesting comment.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, said in statements that the expanded inquiry showed the need for ongoing congressional oversight.

In recent weeks, McClatchy Newspapers has detailed controversial actions by Bradley Schlozman, a former interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City and top official in the Civil Rights Division, including a decision to charge four people with voter fraud just days before the 2006 elections. A Justice Department policy advises against such timing.

Schlozman, who continues to work at the Justice Department, is to appear next Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his hiring practices as well as his possible role in an alleged administration effort to suppress minority votes.

Congressional investigators also are examining allegations that Schlozman hired lawyers based on their political affiliations.

Schlozman served as the division's top deputy from 2003 until the spring of 2005 and then as acting chief until late November 2005.

In a March interview with McClatchy, he denied allegations of politicization, saying he'd "tried to de-politicize the hiring process" and had filled jobs with applicants from "across the political spectrum. . . . I didn't care what your ideological perspective was."

However, former employees of the division's Voting Rights Section, whose decisions can affect the outcome of elections, told McClatchy that eight lawyers had been hired there since 2004 largely because of their Republican or conservative connections.

Two former department lawyers said that when they'd applied for jobs elsewhere in the division in early 2005, Schlozman had asked them to delete mention on their resumes of Republican affiliations and resubmit them. Both attorneys were hired.

One of them, Ty Clevenger, said Schlozman "wanted to make it look like it was apolitical." Clevenger also said that when he'd passed along a resume from a fellow Stanford University Law School graduate, Schlozman had asked, "Is he one of us?"

Clevenger later filed an unrelated whistleblower's complaint alleging that he was fired for complaining to top department officials of mistreatment by his boss.

Goodling resigned last month over the firing controversy. She testified last week that she'd also applied political standards to hiring civil service immigration judges, based on direction from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who also has since resigned.

Goodling testified under an arrangement that granted her immunity from prosecution for her sworn statements.

In other development, the Justice Department said Wednesday that Tim Griffin, the interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., since last December, would resign his post effective June 1.

Griffin, a former Republican Party opposition researcher, has been a controversial figure in the firing controversy because of his close ties to White House political adviser Karl Rove and allegations that he was part of a GOP effort in 2004 to get minorities knocked off of voting rolls. Republican Party officials have denied any impropriety.

To make way for Griffin, the White House and Justice Department last year sought U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins' resignation.

Griffin at one point might have stayed on through the remainder of Bush's term. But when it was revealed that he was installed using a change to the USA Patriot Act that took away the Senate's power to reject him, Griffin said he would stay on only until a permanent replacement was nominated. As of Wednesday, it was unclear who that nominee would be. The Justice Department notified Congress that Griffin's first assistant, Jane W. Duke, would serve as acting U.S. attorney.

Griffin could not be reached for comment.

Said Michael Teague, spokesman for Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.: "This is a positive development, and Senator Pryor looks forward to restoring credible leadership in the U.S. Attorney's office."