{"id":10616,"date":"2007-04-25T13:28:06","date_gmt":"2007-04-25T17:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10616.html"},"modified":"2007-04-25T13:28:06","modified_gmt":"2007-04-25T17:28:06","slug":"goodling-gets-immunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/goodling-gets-immunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodling gets immunity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night on MSNBC, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias said former Alberto Gonzales aide Monica Goodling is the key<\/a> to understanding exactly what transpired in the prosecutor purge. “I think Monica Goodling is holding the keys to the kingdom,” Iglesias said. “I think if they get her to testify under oath with a transcript, and have her describe the process between the information flow between the White House counsel, White House and the Justice Department, I believe the picture becomes a lot clearer.”<\/p>\n

Of course, Goodling has refused to cooperate with any investigation, recently announcing that she would take advantage of her Fifth Amendment privileges, a move that forced Goodling to resign. (Her claim against self-incrimination was always rather dubious<\/a>; she was basically refusing to testify because, as her lawyer explained, she thought Dems would be mean to her.)<\/p>\n

Regardless, lawmakers needed to hear from her. As a recent Legal Times profile explained, Goodling “is far from just a mid-level aide who played a peripheral role in the purge. On the contrary, she’s very well-connected and apparently one of the main drivers<\/a> behind the process of selecting U.S. attorneys.”<\/p>\n

So, today, she got an immunity deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. <\/p>\n

She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
\nThe 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the two-thirds majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The six “no” votes were, of course, from Republicans. Guess what their argument was?
\n
\nPaul Kiel explains<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Republican dissenters, we understand, were Reps. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Chris Cannon (R-UT), Randy Forbes (R-VA), Steve King (R-IA), Trent Franks (R-AZ), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX). Rep. Cannon claimed that the investigation was harming the Justice Department’s ability to conduct business, and Rep. Forbes called the committee’s investigation the “hearings to nowhere,” saying that the investigation was interfering with the committee’s legislative work. Rep. Sensenbrenner wondered whether it was wise to grant Goodling immunity, because doing so would let her off the hook.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, if this scandal has begun to undermine the Justice Department’s ability to function, that’s the fault of those whose actions led to the scandal. Second, if anyone seriously believes Sensenbrenner wants to target Goodling for prosecution, I have some lovely swampland in Florida I’d love to sell.<\/p>\n

As for the schedule, it looks like we’ll still have to wait a while until Goodling makes an immunized appearance before lawmakers. The Justice Department will consider the immunity deal and check it against other investigations, and a federal court will have to approve the deal.<\/p>\n

This could take several weeks, but if Goodling really does hold “the keys to the kingdom,” it’ll be worth the wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night on MSNBC, fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias said former Alberto Gonzales aide Monica Goodling is the key to understanding exactly what transpired in the prosecutor purge. “I think Monica Goodling is holding the keys to the kingdom,” Iglesias said. “I think if they get her to testify under oath with a transcript, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}