April 7, 2007
Goodling Resigns Before Senate Judiciary Committee Issues Subpoenas
- Alberto Gonzales
- U.S. Attorney Firings
- White House
- Dept. of Justice
- Senate Judiciary Committee
- Karl Rove
- House Judiciary Committee
- Monica Goodling
- John Dowd
- Sen. Patrick Leahy
Monica Goodling, former Counsel to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has a smart white collar criminal defense lawyer as her tactition. John Dowd of Akin Gump’s D.C. office has remained a zealous fighter for Goodling.
Only last week Dowd slammed House and Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, charging that they’ve engaged in tactics remeniscent of the McCarthy-era hearings in the 1950s. He told John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, that:
“Contrary to what your April 3, letter suggests, Ms. Goodling’s exercise of her Fifth Amendment rights can in no way be interpreted to suggest that Ms. Goodling herself participated in criminal activity. Your and Senator Leahy’s recent suggestions to the contrary are unfortunately remeniscent of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who infamously labeled those who asserted their constitutional right to remain silent before his committee “Fifth Amendment Communists.”
Having tendered notice of her resignation yesterday (it became effective today), Dowd effectively shut-down the March 30, 2007 demand made by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (Dem. - Vt.) and Sen. Sheldown Whitehouse (Dem. - R.I.) that Goodling couldn’t evade testimony while she remained a Justice Department employee. They slammed Gonzales for permitting this practice to happen under his watch as the country’s top law enforcement officer, asking:
Has it ever happened in the history of the Department of Justice that an attorney has refused to cooperate with OIG or OPR or asserted Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and remained an employee of the Department?
The answer appears to be no.
The House Judiciary Committee has also been steadfast in seeking public testimony and a private interview with Goodling.
Don’t expect Congress to let Goodling get off the hook so easily. It is likely that they will still try to subpoena her for testimony about what, if any, knowledge she had about Karl Rove’s role in any firings. E-mails released by the House Judiciary Committee in the U.S. Attorney firings investigation refer to Rove on numerous occasions.
[…] be a big victory for Goodling and her lawyer. Dowd stridently argued that the Senate and House tactics smacked of McCarthyism by assuming that his client was hiding something, when under the Constitution, she is presumed […]