No Smoking Gun From Goodling

National Review Online: Testimony Leaves Conspiracy-Minded Dems Disappointed

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Byron York.

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Talk about a letdown. For weeks now, we've been hearing about Monica Goodling, the former top Justice Department official who took the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before Congress about the U.S. Attorneys mess. Even though it seemed clear why Goodling took the Fifth — she feared she was walking into a trap in which her testimony would be compared to that of a former boss, the recently-resigned Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and she might be accused of perjury — Goodling's refusal to talk made her all the more desirable to congressional Democrats determined to get to the bottom of the U.S. Attorneys matter. Surely her testimony would be explosive. She's just got to testify.

So with high hopes, the House Judiciary Committee took a vote and decided to grant immunity. And on Wednesday, Goodling showed up in Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building, ready to tell what she knew.

The only problem was, what she knew, or at least what she testified, didn't significantly advance our understanding of why the U.S Attorneys were fired. By the end of the day, Democrats, led by the unfailingly polite but somewhat frustrated chairman Rep. John Conyers, were no closer to a Grand Unified Theory of the U.S. Attorneys matter than they were before.

Over The Line

There were three headlines from Goodling's appearance. The first was that she admitted that she "stepped over the line" by considering partisan affiliation when hiring some career Justice Department employees. "I believe I crossed the lines," Goodling testified. "But I didn’t mean to."

The second headline was Goodling's description of a meeting with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, shortly before she left the Justice Department in March, in which Gonzales seemed to suggest they get their stories straight before they were questioned further about the U.S. Attorneys matter.

"He laid out a little bit of it, and then he asked me if he thought — if I had any reaction to his iteration," Goodling testified. "And I remember thinking at that point that this was something that we were all going to have to talk about, and I didn't know that it was — I just — I didn't know that it was maybe appropriate for us to talk about that at that point, and so I just didn't. As far as I can remember, I just didn't respond."

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

"No," said Goodling. "I think he was just asking if I had any different — "

"But it made you uncomfortable," interrupted Davis.

"I just did not know if it was a conversation that we should be having…"

It was damaging testimony, and it will surely be the source of questions for Gonzales in his future appearances before Congress. (On the other hand, it was no more damaging than presidential secretary Betty Currie's 1998 account of Bill Clinton practicing his story with her in the Lewinsky affair, and many of these same Democrats on this same committee weren't terribly upset about that.)

The third headline was that Goodling made clear that McNulty had offered "incomplete or inaccurate" testimony to Congress on the U.S. attorneys matter. Goodling offered her version of events with one point in mind: Don't blame me. She told the committee that she had fully briefed McNulty, and any problems with his testimony were his alone.

Those were significant issues. But they weren't enough to capture the attention of some committee Democrats, for whom there were more important questions to consider. Questions like: Where did Monica go to law school?

The short answer is Regent University Law School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. The longer answer was provided by newly-elected Tennessee Democratic Rep. Stephen Cohen. Cohen had apparently read Wednesday morning's edition of the Los Angeles Times, which described Regent this way:

Regent University claims 150 past and present members of the Bush administration among its alumni. Accredited by the American Bar Assn., the law school boasts of a "distinctive" Christian-based mission "to bring to bear the will of our Creator, Almighty God, upon legal education and the legal profession," according to its Web site.

A quick student of the Times, Cohen asked Goodling, "The mission of the law school you attended, Regent, is to bring to bear upon legal education and the legal profession the will of almighty God, our creator. What is the will of almighty God, our creator, on the legal profession?"

Goodling seemed perplexed. "I'm not sure that I could define that question for you," she said.

[katg21]

Talk about beating a dead horse....and ALL for "political gain" like in 2006.........really sad

Posted by perception5 at 02:28 PM : May 24, 2007

Like I even have to say it...I AGREE!!!

[katg21]

Let's move on to more important issues now, this witch hunt is getting old.

[sparks224]

Two things:
1. The Republican Party used caging lists. A Felony.
2. Alberto Gonzalez lied under oath to congress. Also a Felony.

Oh, THAT smoking gun.

I sure glad the NRO isn%u2019t a right wing noise machine, because if they were they%u2019d be trying to mislead everyone.

[terrapin78]

Congress' approval rating will certainly go up once we rid ourselves of more Republicons in the next election. The numbers reflect on the GOP!

[hankbro-2009]

No Smoking Gun from Goodling? Did anyone hear that the Republicans were using Caging Lists to suppress voter turnout?

[notblue]

fascistusa, please explain in detail what freedoms have been removed that have affected you personally in regards to your daily life? I have friends you represent both political sides and we cannot come up with one example where our lives have changed do to these so called loss of rights.

[terrapin78]

From Greg Palast:

This Monica revealed something hotter %u2014 much hotter %u2014 than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One%u2026.And the Committee members didn%u2019t even know it.


Here%u2019s what you need to know %u2014 and the Committee would have discovered, if only they%u2019d asked:

1. %u2018Caging%u2019 voters is a crime, a go-to-jail felony.

2. Griffin wasn%u2019t %u201Cinvolved%u201D in the caging, Ms. Goodling. Griffin, Rove%u2019s right-hand man (right-hand claw), was directing the illegal purge and challenge campaign. How do I know? It%u2019s in the email I got. Thanks. And it%u2019s posted below.

3. On December 7, 2006, the ragin%u2019, cagin%u2019 Griffin was named, on Rove%u2019s personal demand, US Attorney for Arkansas. Perpetrator became prosecutor.

The committee was perplexed about Monica%u2019s panicked admission and accusations about the caging list because the US press never covered it. That%u2019s because, as Griffin wrote to Goodling in yet another email (dated February 6 of this year, and also posted below), their caging operation only made the news on BBC London: busted open, Griffin *******, by that %u201CBritish reporter,%u201D Greg Palast.

[bluestardad]

HER TESTIMONEY WAS A COACHED ACT BY A BUSH STOOGE! TRYING TO DEFLECT THE WRATH OF AMERICA!

[notblue]

Another waist of time and taxpayers money, another Democratic witch hunt used to deflect the fact the the Dems have not accomplished anything but critisize and investigate the other side of the isle. The Amercian people expected better from the Dmes than just being anti-Republican.

[wogerwabbit]

"the U.S. Attorney firings were done in a manner that was so slipshod, so halting, and so pointless that nobody quite knew what was going on" ... which by itself is reason enough to fire the whole bunch of them. We're paying big bucks to these clueless bozos to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States... not to preserve, protect and defend the Republican party, or Gonzo, or Bush. Apparently, any act of outrageous criminality and/or stupidity is quite all right with Republicans as long as it helps them to remain in power. To me, the Republican party has betrayed the trust we the people have placed in them and sold out our country for political idealology. They're traitors and no better than a bunch of commumists taking over our government... even worse, because they are subverting America from the inside. As a (now ex-) Republican, I'm horrified at the prospects for the future our country if these sorry excuses for Americans are allowed to continue their treasonous destruction of our republic.

[heartlight3]

I don't get it. She must have thought she did something wrong, or she wouldn't have needed to invoke the fifth amendment and refuse to testify unless granted immunity. I don't agree that it was because her testimony would be compared to McNulty's and she would be accused of perjury. If her testimony is what it seems, it's a matter of he said/she said, and he could just as easily have been the perjuror. The only thing I can see that was possibly criminal was the requiring that career appointees be Republican, and given the significance of everything else involved, that seems pretty trivial, although, "I didn't mean to" is a pretty lame defense. She seems to be a pretty typical Bush administration participant. Anything she might have done wrong was really someone else's fault, and it wasn't really her decision. Given the fuss she made, I would have expected her to have more to offer.

Our Democratically-controlled Congress is doing the work of the people and in so doing is exposing the Bush Administration for what it is...a corrupt machine bent on undermining the balance of power which our Constitution is designed to have.

[fascistusa]

Yup. Nothing to see here, Folks.

Just the Fascist takeover of America.

Nazi America. Bush/Cheney style.

But remember... WE'RE FREE!!!!!

[perception5]

The case is a perfect example of the "political lynchings" that our Democrat controlled DO-NOTHING CONGRESS with their 27% approval rating have been conducting since January..........with a LOT of help from their pals and "enablers" in our corrupt liberal MSM wolfpack press.

.........he said .......then I said.....and she said......and then they said.......


Talk about beating a dead horse....and ALL for "political gain" like in 2006.........really sad