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Goodling: Firings not linked to political payback |
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By Klaus Marre
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Posted: 05/23/07 11:26 AM [ET] |
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Monica Goodling, a former liaison between the Department of Justice and the White House, testified Wednesday that while her role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys was minor, she was unaware that any of the firings were a form of political retribution. “I’m not aware of anybody within the department ever suggesting the replacement of these U.S. attorneys to interfere with a particular case or in retaliation for prosecuting or refusing to prosecute any particular case for political advantage,” Goodling testified. She said, however, that former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty “was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement in the replacement decision, failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of the White House's interest in selecting Tim Griffin as the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas, inaccurately described the department’s internal assessment of the Parsky commission and failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote-cadging during his work on the president’s 2004 campaign.” Goodling, who planned to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before receiving immunity in exchange for her testimony, said she learned in mid-2005 that officials more senior than she had contemplated the firing of some U.S. attorneys. However, she made clear that she was not the primary contact to the White House on the issue and never had discussed the firings with Bush adviser Karl Rove or former White House counsel Harriet Miers. “I have never attended a meeting of the White House Judicial Selection Committee,” she testified. “The attorney general and Kyle Sampson attended those meetings.” Goodling resigned from her position after the U.S. attorney issue became a full-blown controversy. However, she said her primary role in the affair was not an involvement in compiling the list of U.S. attorneys to be let go, but rather in dealing with the fallout from the firings. |
