NYT :Time for Answers

[cal04]

The news that Monica Goodling, counsel to the attorney general and liaison to the White House, is invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination takes the United States attorney scandal to a new level. Ms. Goodling’s decision comes just days after the Justice Department released documents strongly suggesting that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not been honest about his own role in the firing of eight federal prosecutors. Mr. Gonzales is scheduled to testify before the Senate in three weeks, but that is too long to wait. He should speak now, and explain why he continues to insist that his department did nothing wrong.

As the liaison between the White House and the Justice Department, Ms. Goodling seems to have been squarely in the middle of what appears to have been improper directions from the White House to politicize the hiring and firing of United States attorneys. Mr. Gonzales has insisted the eight prosecutors were let go for poor performance, and that the dismissals are an “overblown personnel matter.” But Ms. Goodling’s decision to exercise her Fifth Amendment rights suggests that she, at least, believes crimes may have been committed.

Last Friday night, the Justice Department released a calendar entry that directly contradicts Mr. Gonzales’s insistence that he was out of the loop. It shows that he attended an hourlong meeting on Nov. 27 to discuss the upcoming firings of seven of the prosecutors. Previously, he had insisted that he never “had a discussion about where things stood.”

(snip)
The more information that comes out, the more disturbing the firings look. Mr. Gonzales is scheduled to make a routine appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17. But there is, as John McKay, a fired United States attorney from Washington State, put it, “a cloud over the Justice Department” right now. Mr. Gonzales should testify this week. The serious questions that have been raised about improper, and possibly illegal, actions in the Justice Department need to be investigated and answered without delay in full public view.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/opinion/27tue1.html

[Fresh_Start]

1. Does pleading the fifth make the case for disbarrment?

just thinking this is another bushie who ought to have to learn to work for a living in the future.

[KingBob]

2. The Fifth

The next thing we will hear is Ms. Goodling has made a deal with the DoJ/USA to testify for immunity (remember Ari Flecher, WH spokesman?)

[newyawker99]

5. Hi KingBob!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[EVDebs]

3. If only the NYTimes would investigate...

the Foggo/Cunningham/CIA/GOP-funding machine we'd be over this a lot sooner. The compromised intelligence community, now being run by the GOP for its own ideological and financial gain, is behind keeping much of the current investigations and corruption unearthings still secret.

Just look at the backgrounds of Berenson (Sampson's) and Dowd (Goodling's) attorney -- very well versed in the IranContra aspect (in Dowd's case) and the corruption of gaming Iraq (what Berenson must have seen in the WH counsels office).

The bases are covered, just keep your mouth shut and this will all blow over with little 'blowback'; the Dems aren't smart enough to figure this out...

Or are they ?

The USAttny's scandal ties in here,

Federal grand jury indicts Foggo, Wilkes
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/cunningham/20070213-1448-bn13indict4.html

and Porter Goss' CIA 'cooperation' is suspect to say the least...

The Probe of a Senior CIA Official Hits Home — and Abroad
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1193942,00.html

and Negroponte's CIA coup
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191802,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

amid 'state secrets' and bending the spy agencies to 'his will',

""But most of all, he had been hired as CIA chief at the very moment the job began to lose its clout. Less than a year after Goss stepped into the Langley, Va., post, Bush named Negroponte director of national intelligence (DNI) and gave him the authority to oversee and direct 16 intelligence shops—among them the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the FBI. Armed with new powers created by Congress, Negroponte was supposed to make the hidebound agencies work together and share information, something they had largely failed to do before 9/11. Goss's departure was, above all, a signal that Negroponte was finally exercising his powers and trying to slip the stray agencies into harness."

Negroponte will be in charge of keeping the GOP, Intell, moneylaundry running smoothly.

But by alll means, NYTimes, ignore Uncle Bucky's windfall,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x509703

[Kurovski]

4. K&R.(nt)