Monica's blue blue dress...

Goodling's that is. Greg Palast at the Brad Blog points out the committee missed the most amazing confession and link to a crime during Monica Goodling's testimony:

This Monica revealed something hotter --- much hotter --- 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....And the Committee members didn't even know it.

Goodling testified that Gonzales' Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: Sampson denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin's "involvement in 'caging' voters" in 2004.

[snip]

Here's how caging worked, and along with Griffin's thoughtful emails themselves you'll understand it all in no time.

The Bush-Cheney operatives sent hundreds of thousands of letters marked "Do not forward" to voters' homes. Letters returned ("caged") were used as evidence to block these voters' right to cast a ballot on grounds they were registered at phony addresses. Who were the evil fakers? Homeless men, students on vacation and --- you got to love this --- American soldiers. Oh yeah: most of them are Black voters.

Why weren't these African-American voters home when the Republican letters arrived? The homeless men were on park benches, the students were on vacation --- and the soldiers were overseas. Go to Baghdad, lose your vote. Mission Accomplished.

How do I know? I have the caging lists...

I have them because they are attached to the emails Rove insists can't be found. I have the emails. 500 of them --- sent to our team at BBC after the Rove-bots accidentally sent them to a web domain owned by our friend John Wooden.

Here's what you need to know --- and the Committee would have discovered, if only they'd asked:

1. 'Caging' voters is a crime, a go-to-jail felony.
2. Griffin wasn't "involved" in the caging, Ms. Goodling. Griffin, Rove's right-hand man (right-hand claw), was directing the illegal purge and challenge campaign. How do I know? It's in the email I got. Thanks. And it's posted below.
3. On December 7, 2006, the ragin', cagin' Griffin was named, on Rove's personal demand, US Attorney for Arkansas. Perpetrator became prosecutor.

The committee was perplexed about Monica's panicked admission and accusations about the caging list because the US press never covered it. That's 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 bitched, by that "British reporter," Greg Palast.

Ask the questions, Congress! Palast has written it all down for you if you are brave enough to use them. Go and look at his evidence.

Monica's clothes were actually more black than blue, but anyway....

And did you assume the missionary position?

Monica Goodling got to ask some very intriging questions. (My bold):

[Goodling] appeared to take similar concerns about political leanings into account when making decisions about promotions and special assignments for Justice Department lawyers.

Robert Nicholson, a career lawyer from the Southern District of Florida, was asked some unusual questions when he applied for a post at the Justice Department headquarters, according to two department lawyers, including Margaret M. Chiara, the former chief prosecutor Western Michigan.

“Which Supreme Court justice do you most admire and why? Which legislator do you most admire and why? And which president do you most admire and why?” Mr. Nicholson was asked by Ms. Goodling, according to Ms. Chiara and the other lawyer, who asked not to be named.

Mr. Nicholson, who did not get the job, did not dispute the account, but he declined to comment, citing the investigation of Ms. Goodling.

In another instance, two Justice Department officials said, Ms. Goodling decided she did not like the applicants for one prestigious posting at department headquarters and decided to offer the job to David C. Woll Jr., a young lawyer who she knew was a Republican. In the interview, a department official said, she asked Mr. Woll if he had ever cheated on his wife. Mr. Woll declined to comment for this article.

Update 5/12: Is it true you lose immunity if you lie under oath?

A federal judge approved an immunity deal Friday allowing former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling to testify before Congress about the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Goodling, who served as the department's White House liaison, has refused to discuss the firings without a guarantee that she will not be prosecuted. Congress agreed to the deal, Justice Department investigators reluctantly agreed not to not oppose it and U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan gave it final approval Friday.

When a religious goody twoshoes gets to join the inner sanctum of power

She finds herself doing things she knows are wrong.... but it was really all in God's name... really!:

A federal judge approved an immunity deal Friday allowing former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling to testify before Congress about the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Goodling, who served as the department's White House liaison, has refused to discuss the firings without a guarantee that she will not be prosecuted. Congress agreed to the deal, Justice Department investigators reluctantly agreed not to oppose it and U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan gave it final approval Friday.

"Monica Goodling may not refuse to testify," Hogan began his brief order, which said that Goodling could not be prosecuted for anything other than perjury in connection with her testimony.

Remember, even though there has been horrific damage done to the Department of Justice, she really really feels it:

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- A former U.S. Justice Department official and central figure in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys tearfully told a colleague two months ago her government career probably was over as the matter was about to erupt into a political storm, according to closed-door congressional testimony.

Monica Goodling, at the time an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, sobbed for 45 minutes in the office of career Justice Department official David Margolis on March 8 as she related her fears that she would have to quit, according to congressional aides briefed on Margolis's private testimony to House and Senate investigators. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity.

Margolis's description of the emotional scene in his office sheds new light on divisions that were developing in the Justice Department's Washington headquarters as the Democratic-controlled Congress was demanding documents that might show White House involvement in the dismissals.

Goodling, 33, who was Gonzales's White House liaison, resigned April 6 and has invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to refuse to answer lawmakers' questions about her role in the firings. Her lawyers cited accusations by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty that Goodling and others had misled him about the firings as a basis for refusing to testify.

Oh... wait. She's crying about losing her job, isn't she?

Update: The New York Times:

“She was inexperienced, way too naïve and a little overzealous,” said Mr. Cummins, a Republican from Arkansas. “She might have somehow figured that what she was doing was the right thing. But a more experienced person would understand you don’t help the party by trying to put political people in there. You put the best people you can find in there.”

Ms. Goodling, now 33, arrived at the department at the start of the Bush administration after working as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee during the 2000 presidential campaign.

Her legal experience was limited; she had graduated in 1999 from Regent University School of Law, which was founded by Pat Robertson. Deeply religious and politically conservative, Ms. Goodling seemed to believe that part of her job was to bring people with similar values into the Justice Department, several former colleagues said.

I hate to break it to Monica Goodling, but that notice she put on her emails?

Is fucking illegal and will earn her five years in the clink:

Let's review the timeline. On January 17, 2007, Senators Feinstein and Leahy grilled Alberto Gonzales on the recent spate of U.S. Attorney firings. On January 25, 2007, Senator Schumer announced that he was going to hold hearings on the firing of U.S. Attorneys. And on February 6, Schumer held the first set of hearings, in which Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified that Bud Cummins was not asked to leave for "performance-related" reasons, but rather to make way for Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin. That damaging testimony helped propel this story to the front pages.

And two days later, on February 8, 2007, Senators Durbin, Schumer, Murray, and Reid sent a follow up letter to Alberto Gonzales asking all sorts of questions arising out of McNulty's testimony, including a number of questions about the replacement of Bud Cummins with Tim Griffin.

It is in this context that Monica Goodling, four days later, sends out the above-displayed email, which attaches updated talking points re: Griffin/Cummins and various other U.S. Attorney related issues and instructs the recipients to delete prior versions of the documents.

As a litigator, I can tell you, that's a real no-no. You never instruct people to delete documents that are relevant to a pending investigation. Never. That's true even when the investigating body hasn't yet got around to requesting those documents. It smacks of obstruction. Indeed, the Obstruction of Congress statute, 18 U.S.C § 1505, specifically prohibits any attempts to obstruct "the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress." The penalty is up to 5 years in prison.

When you run such a bad school you can't earn accreditation

The obvious thing to do is change the rules.

Thers of Whiskey Fire:

Last month the Dept of Education issued a proposal to strengthen its hold over college accreditation bodies -- broadly speaking, the organizations that set the standards for public and private colleges and universities. Inside Higher Ed sums up the proposals:

The draft language, which will be considered next week by a federal panel weighing possible changes in federal rules governing higher education accreditation, would give accreditors three options for measuring institutions’ success in educating students — two of which force them to set minimal levels of acceptable performance, which accreditors (and many college officials) have traditionally considered it inappropriate for them to do.

The department’s proposals would also require accrediting agencies to bar the colleges they monitor from basing decisions about whether to accept a transfer student’s academic credits on the accreditation status of the “sending” institution, and significantly increase the amount and types of information that accrediting groups would have to make public.

There's a lot to discuss in that first paragraph. But here let's highlight the second part: "The department’s proposals would also require accrediting agencies to bar the colleges they monitor from basing decisions about whether to accept a transfer student’s academic credits on the accreditation status of the 'sending' institution."

It's an arcane-sounding point, but what it really is, is a big giveaway to schools like The King's College, which I discuss here. Religious wingnutty schools like that have trouble getting accreditation from one of the regional bodies, which leads to trouble when students want to transfer their credits to schools that are accredited in the usual way.

These people don't miss a trick. The overall goal is to create a parallel ideological universe, a nation with a nation, one with its own rules and even laws.

When you don't like the truth, challenge the facts. When your faith is threatened by science, disparage science. When you want a theocracy, flood the judicial system with your minions.

From the Carpetbagger Report:

Thanks to the prosecutor purge scandal, and former Alberto Gonzales aide Monica Goodling’s role in it, the public is learning about Robertson’s Regent University, which, as Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick noted over the weekend, is doing exactly what it set out to do.

Goodling is only one of 150 graduates of Regent University currently serving in this administration, as Regent’s Web site proclaims proudly, a huge number for a 29-year-old school. Regent estimates that “approximately one out of every six Regent alumni is employed in some form of government work.” And that’s precisely what its founder desired. The school’s motto is “Christian Leadership To Change the World,” and the world seems to be changing apace. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft teaches at Regent, and graduates have achieved senior positions in the Bush administration. The express goal is not only to tear down the wall between church and state in America (a “lie of the left,” according to Robertson) but also to enmesh the two.

The law school’s dean, Jeffrey A. Brauch, urges in his “vision” statement that students reflect upon “the critical role the Christian faith should play in our legal system.” Jason Eige (’99), senior assistant to Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, puts it pithily in the alumni newsletter, Regent Remark: “Your Resume Is God’s Instrument.”

As Christopher Hayes explained in The American Prospect, more than two-thirds of Regent students identified themselves as Republicans, but the numbers aren’t as important as the school’s mission. As Hayes noted, “what students are taught at a place like Regent, or even Calvin and Wheaton, is to live out a Christ-centered existence in all facets of their lives. But what they learn is to become Republicans.”

Slate’s Lithwick suggests the more significant problem here is that these Regent grads left Robertson’s confines confused: “Goodling and her ilk somehow began to conflate God’s work with the president’s.” I think there’s some truth to that — Regent grads may be convinced that Bush is somehow God’s messenger on earth — but I suspect the problem is more practical than that.

Thanks to Robertson’s minions infiltrating Bush’s Justice Department, religious right activists are literally helping drive federal law enforcement, particularly when it comes to civil rights and picking U.S. Attorneys.

The Bush administration really does believe it can change reality.
Just to remind you, a quote from a senior adviser to Bush in 2002:

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

Goodling's gone

Abu must be feeling the heat.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales abruptly resigned on Friday in another twist in the controversy surrounding the Justice Department's firing of eight U.S. prosecutors.

The aide, Monica Goodling, is the second adviser to Gonzales to depart as criticism mounts in Congress over the department's handling of the dismissals, which Democrats have said were politically motivated.

Goodling had invoked her constitutional right against self-incrimination in refusing to testify before a Senate panel investigating the firings last year of the prosecutors.

She resigned in a brief letter submitted to Gonzales, whose resignation has been demanded by Democrats who charge the U.S. attorney firings were political motivated, an allegation the Bush administration denies.

Tracking Monica Goodling's resume

Leads us to the White House and the tentacles of the religious right infesting the Bush administration. Not capability, not competence, but rightwing religious fanaticism gets you hired.
Why are we not surprised?

While everyone's attention is focused on Monica Goodling's invocation of the Fifth, emails and Executive subornation of an objective process in how the DOJ selects its targets for prosecution, the larger point - Executive appointments, job qualifications and how failing to meet those qualifications led to mistakes.

If you are doing the Lord's work

Why would you need to take the Fifth?

Sinfonian at Blast Off!:

...Ms. Goodling, aide to Alberto Gonzales, will refuse to answer questions when she appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the investigation into the politically-motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Bryan of Why Now? quotes CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A Justice Department official will refuse to answer questions during a Senate committee hearing on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself, her lawyer said Monday.

In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling’s lawyer said she would not testify because senators have already decided that wrongdoing occurred.

“The public record is clear that certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have already reached conclusions about the matter under investigation and the veracity of the testimony provided by the Justice Department to date,” John Dowd, Goodling’s lawyer, said in a letter to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Bryan continues:

Yo, Mr. Dowd, if the Senators didn’t feel there was a problem they wouldn’t be holding hearings and voting on sending subpoenas. They don’t just get together over a nosh in the cloakroom and say, “hey, for giggles and grins, let’s investigate the Justice Department.” A Congressional hearing isn’t a trial court, it’s closer to a grand jury investigation, without the secrecy. They want to know if something is wrong, and by standing on her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, your client has indicated that she thinks there’s a problem, and that problem is a crime.

Now, it’s possible that you are fishing for immunity for your client, but I don’t think these guys are going to bite. There are plenty of people who want to talk, that all she’s done is increase the confidence that the mess needs to be investigated, and people could be indicted at the end of the process.

I would note that I don’t know that a crime has been committed, but my reasonable suspicion is rapidly advancing toward probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, a crime beyond lying to Congress. It’s time to start thinking about proving things beyond reasonable doubt.

If Goodling is truly religious, she knows that telling the truth is the only way to honor God. So she takes the Fifth. That means she has knowingly broken the law or seen the law being broken. Interesting....

Update: Froomkin discusses when you can take the Fifth:

Juries in criminal cases are sternly lectured not to assume guilt when a defendant takes the Fifth. It is, after all, a Constitutional right.

But when a fairly minor player in what had heretofore not been considered a criminal investigation suddenly admits that she faces legal jeopardy if she tells the truth to a Congressional panel? Well, in that case, wild speculation is an inevitable and appropriate reaction.

For one, it's not at all clear what she's trying to say. Undeniably, if she chose to lie to the panel, she could face perjury charges. Her recourse, therefore, would appear to be to tell the truth.

So is she saying that if she told the truth, she would have to admit a crime? What crime?

Or is she saying something else: That she'd have to admit someone else's criminal behavior? Well, that's not something you can take the Fifth to avoid. Sorry.

Or is she just afraid of being grilled by an antagonistic bunch of congressmen? Well, that's not something you can take the Fifth to avoid either.

Curiouser and curiouser...

Update: Steve Bates points to a commenter at Talking Points Memo:

Monica Goodling does have a good faith basis for pleading the Fifth Amendment - just not the ones in her lawyer's letter that are getting all the attention.

Under the federal False Statements statute, 18 USC 1001, it is a felony to cause another person to make a false statement to Congress. Since McNulty has allegedly told Senator Schumer that he made a false statement to Congress based on information provided to him by Monica Goodling, Goodling could very well be prosecuted for a Section 1001 violation.

All the rest of the crap in her lawyer's letter is intended to sooth as much as possible WH anger at her for invoking the Fifth.