Talking Points: Goodling Testifies

Yesterday, Monica Goodling, the former Justice Department liaison to the White House, finally testified before Congress about her role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Expectations were high for Goodling, who had negotiated immunity after invoking her fifth amendment rights, with some saying she held “the keys to the kingdom” of the scandal. But her appearance before the House Judiciary Committee resulted in more of the same — yet another Justice official deflecting responsibility for the firings while pointing fingers at others. Goodling is the fifth Justice official involved in the firings to testify before Congress about the scandal, but after all the testimonies, including two appearances by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, no one has offered an explanation for where the list of potential targets came from and why particular attorneys were placed on it.

• The Attorney General attempted to shape Goodling’s testimony. Perhaps the most damaging revelation in Goodling’s testimony was her disclosure that right before she took a leave of absence from the Department of Justice, Alberto Gonzales personally attempted to shape her future testimony to Congress about the U.S. attorney purge. Describing it as an “uncomfortable” conversation, Goodling claimed that in a personal meeting with Gonzales, he “laid out…his general recollection…of some of the process…regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys.” After he had “laid out a little bit of it,” Gonzales asked Goodling if she “had any reaction to his iteration.” “I didn’t know that it was, maybe, appropriate for us to talk about that at that point,” she added. The conversation took place on either March 14th or 15th, a week after “the House Judiciary Committee requested that Goodling testify before the committee.” Her testimony indicates that the Attorney General may have crossed “into a borderline area of coaching a likely witness before the eventual testimony,” which could potentially be viewed as obstruction of justice under 18 USC section 1505. Goodling denied that Gonzales was trying to “shape” her “recollection,” though she acknowledged that the conversation was not “appropriate.”

• Goodling took partisan affiliations into account when hiring career employees at the Justice Department. In March 2006, in a highly confidential order, Alberto Gonzales delegated to Goodling and Kyle Sampson extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. In her opening statement yesterday, Goodling admitted to abusing that power by taking “inappropriate political considerations into account” while hiring career employees at the Department. Goodling’s actions, which included questioning applicants about their political preferences and even researching their past political donations, were against the law, as “federal law and Justice Department policies bar the consideration of political affiliation in hiring of personnel for non-political, career jobs.”

• Once again, questions remain about the involvement of the White House.  Though Goodling denied in her testimony that she was “the primary White House contact for purposes of the development or approval of the U.S. Attorney replacement plan,” the denials of her own role in the firings only point more fingers at the White House. “What we have heard today seems to reinforce the mounting evidence that the White House was pulling the strings on this project to target certain prosecutors in different parts of the country,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) yesterday. Goodling indicated that the purge may have arose from a group of select White House advisers, known as the White House Judicial Selection Committee. She explained that she had never attended a meeting of the group, but Gonzales and Sampson did. Ultimately though, Goodling admitted she “can’t give” the “whole White House story.” As the Washington Post wrote in an editorial today, “Lawmakers need to hear from those who can,” such as Harriet Miers and Karl Rove.