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Goodling’s ‘uncomfortable’ conversation piques senators’ interest |
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By Jeremy Jacobs
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Posted: 06/06/07 06:05 PM [ET] |
The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are seeking answers regarding an “uncomfortable” conversation on the firing of U.S. attorneys between Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Monica Goodling that the former Department of Justice (DoJ) aide described in recent testimony.
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking Republican Arlen Specter (Pa.) are asking DoJ Inspector General Glenn Fine if the conversation is part of his internal investigation into the firings.
In her May 23 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Goodling discussed “a meeting she had with Attorney General Gonzales that made her ‘uncomfortable’ in the days before she resigned from the Department of Justice,” the senators wrote Fine.
They added that the former DoJ-White House liaison also said “that Mr. Gonzales recounted to her his recollection of the process leading up to and including the firing and replacement of several U.S. Attorneys.”
Such a conversation stands in stark contrast to Gonzales’s April 19 testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Specter and Leahy note. In those remarks, Gonzales said he avoided discussing the firings with possible “witnesses because of the fact that I haven’t wanted to interfere with this investigation and department investigations.”
Leahy and Specter noted that Goodling’s testimony prompted Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) to ask Goodling whether Gonzales “engaged in inappropriately communicating with someone he knew was a participant in and witness to the matters under investigation in order to shape her testimony.” Goodling did not provide a clear answer to Davis’s question. |
