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Monica Goodling's long-awaited testimony may have had less sizzle and pop than I wanted, but there are plenty of questions to explore further --
- Did Deputy AG Paul McNulty willfully obscure in previous testimony the depth of White House involvement in the attorney firings?
- Did AG Alberto Gonzales attempt to suborn Ms. Goodling's testimony?
Next up: Paul McNulty and Rove's former aide Susan Ralston, who provides a White House connection to the Jack Abramoff bribery scandals.
Far as I'm concerned, the real meat here is recovering the Rove emails, and getting Rove before Congress under oath to answer questions about the politicization of DOJ and why he used the GOP email servers for the conduct of official business.
As the naturalist John Muir once observed, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
Attorneygate - WP: "Goodling Says She 'Crossed the Line'"
.......... - "Officials Describe Interference by Former Gonzales Aide"
.......... - Dana Milbank: "Monica's Own Monica Problem"
.......... - Paul Kane: "Goodling's lawyer told Dems to ask about AG"
.......... - Dan Froomkin: "What Monica Doesn't Know"
.......... - David Iglesias: "On U.S. Attorney Firings, Goodling Testimony"..... - NYT: "Ex-Aide Admits Political Slant in Justice Role"
..... - Truthout: "Goodling Broke Law in Some DOJ Hirings, Testimony Reveals"
.......... - "Former Rove Aide Susan Ralston Seeks Immunity Pact"
..... - OpEd, LAT: David Iglesias (fired US Attorney): "'Cowboy up,' Alberto Gonzales"
-- Dan Damon
Will the top-to-bottom politicization of the Department of Justice under George W. Bush be this administration's undoing?
News cropping up over the weekend set Congress up to put the Bush administration in the center of a classic pincer movement.
On the one hand, we have the continued unraveling of the explanations for the US Attorney FIRINGS --
- Now we learn from Newsweek that Karl Rove was involved in coaching a Gonzales deputy, William Moschella, before his Congressional testimony on the firings. Though a White House meeting to prep Moschella was previously known of, no mention of Rove had been made before last week.
- Further, new details on the firing of the US Attorney in Seattle published in the Seattle Times are casting more doubt on AG Alberto Gonzales' account of the firings.
- Finally, the Boston Globe points out, Bradley Schlozman is emerging as a key player in the firings as part of a Rovian strategy to put political appointees in place and to gin up voter fraud cases ahead of the 2006 elections. Schlozman was sent to Missouri under the sneaked-in provision in the renewed Patriot Act allowing for placement of deputy US Attorneys without Senatorial consent.
On the other hand, there is new evidence that RECRUITMENT and PLACING of attorneys was politically guided --
- Here Schlozman appears to be the nexus of both the firings and hirings, as pointed out by the McClatchy wire service.
- Further, the Boston Globe has shown that about a third of new US Attorney appointments are administration insiders, including 10 top aides to AG Gonzales.
- Conservative Republican appointees like former DOJ attorney Ty Clevenger have told McClatchy that Schlozman advised them to doctor their resumes and resubmit them in an effort to hide conservative affiliations.
Add to this what we already know of Monica Goodling's involvement and the expectation of new and perhaps startling revelations when she testifies before Congress, and we have the makings of an enormous pincer movement.
To which the final pieces would be the recovery by Congress of the missing Rove (and other White House employees') GOP-server based emails and a public appearance by Rove before Congress and under oath.
A much-studied classic example of the pincers or double envelopment tactic is the Battle of the Cowpens during the American Revolution.
The American commander, Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan, brilliantly exploited his forces' strengths and weaknesses as well as the unique terrain of the Cowpens and the weaknesses of the British opposing force, under Cornwallis' deputy Col. Banastre Tarleton, to wrest a decisive victory.
The victory of the colonists marked a psychological turning point of the war for the Americans, who never looked back after this moment, and a decisive blow to Cornwallis' hopes for victory over the rebels.
Will Congress have the nerve, insightfulness and execution of Morgan, or will it snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and lose in the Cowpens of 2007?
More Attorneygate reading:
-- Dan Damon
Like Clinton before him, George W. Bush may find that his Monica just won't go away.
The Dems want to hear from Monica Goodling, and they will if they want to -- her pre-emptive refusal notwithstanding. Stories are in today's WashPost and NYTimes.
The pre-emptive refusal is just so ballsy!
TBM is old enough to recall the height of the McCarthy and HUAC terrors. No one ever refused to come before the Congress then, so who does she think she is.
Goodling needs to haul her ass in and sit down, under oath, on the record, and let the American people see just what sort of questions she feels answering which might incriminate her.
And if she is offered immunity, it could get real interesting.
Meanwhile, this little hotshot has fast-tracked her way from Pat Robertson's Regents University Law School to a White House apparatchick pretty fast, huh! As Rich Miles (of Logical Negativism) wrote me, this calls for a little looking into.
US Attorney Firings - NYT: "Democrats Seek to Interview Gonzales Aide"
..... - WP: "House Dems Seek to Question Gonzales Aide About Fired Prosecutors"
and the buzz on my original post: "The Monica in Bush's Future"
BuzzFlash: "Goodling Hunting"
Kassandra Williams (in the Texas Hill Country): "Interesting Information"
Marco Garcia (Chicago): "On Bush's Monica"
Sex & Politics & Screeds & Attitude: "A wonderful post that just tracks everything so read that."
-- Dan Damon
