The Justice Department's former White House liaison denied Wednesday that she played a major role in the firings of U.S. attorneys last year and blamed Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty for misleading Congress about the dismissals.McNulty's explanation, on Feb. 6, "was incomplete or inaccurate in a number of respects," Monica Goodling told a packed House Judiciary Committee inquiry into the firings.
She added: "I believe the deputy was not fully candid."
Not that I think the man is innocent in the deal, but I'm a little suspicious about the truth of this all falling into McNulty's realm of responsibility. I think it's more likely that Goodling was calling the shots at Rove's behest. But that's the price McNulty pays for pissing 'em off. That's how they play the game.
Back in March, Bob Fertik blogged that Goodling didn't take the fifth for her own protection, but to protect Karl Rove, based on information from the McClatchy papers.
Goodling took a leading role in making sure that Tim Griffin, a protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove, replaced H.E. 'Bud' Cummins as the U.S. attorney in Arkansas. Documents released to Congress include communications between Goodling and Scott Jennings, Rove's deputy.Goodling must remain silent to protect Rove. That's why she has one of the most expensive lawyers in DC, according to the Wall Street Journal:
Well, that lawyer has had lots of time to prepare her for her testimony today. I suspect everybody's sweating bullets watching her.
[Goodling] said she never spoke to former White House counsel Harriet Miers or Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, about the firings. But she admitted to have considered applicants for jobs as career prosecutors based on their political loyalties — a violation of federal law."I may have gone too far, and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions," Goodling said. "And I regret those mistakes."
Rep. Bobby Scott (news, bio, voting record), D-Va., hammered Goodling on her decisions to hire prosecutors who favored Republicans.
"Do you believe they were illegal or legal?" Scott asked.
"I don't believe I intended to commit a crime," Goodling, a lawyer, answered.
"Did you break the law? Is it against the law to take those considerations into account?" Scott said.
"I believe I crossed the line, but I didn't mean to," she responded.
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