Gonzales Aide Will Plead 5th Amendment

by Steve

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If everything about the federal prosecutor firings is so legal and appropriate, then why is a senior Gonzales staffer planning on pleading the 5th amendment when she is called to testify this week?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' liaison with the White House will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer says.

"I have decided to follow by lawyer's advice and respectfully invoke my constitutional right," Monica Goodling, Gonzales' counsel and White House liaison, said in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

What really is going on here is an internal battle at Justice. Gonzales and his hacks like Goodling are at war with the career staff and allies of Deputy AG Paul McNulty, who believes that Goodling misled him when she prepared his testimony for Congress in which he lied.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the Senate's investigation into the firings, said Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told him Goodling misled him before he testified to Schumer's panel on Feb. 6.

A day earlier, Goodling was among aides who helped McNulty prepare his testimony. Schumer has said McNulty may have given Congress incomplete or otherwise misleading information about the circumstances of the firings.

The loyal Bushies like Abu and Goodling are covering for their bosses at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, while Justice veterans are rallying around McNulty and others who refuse to go down for this political hatchet job. And now that Goodling is taking the Fifth, it will get worse from here on out.