The continuing controversy over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys seems to have taken an interesting turn. One of the senior counselors to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is refusing to testify before Congress and claiming the protection of the Fifth Amendment:
The senior counselor to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales will refuse to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the unfolding U.S. attorneys scandal, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, her attorneys said today.
Monica M. Goodling — who is on an indefinite leave of absence from Gonzales’s office — also alleges in a sworn declaration that a “senior Department of Justice official” has admitted he was “not entirely candid” in his Senate testimony and has blamed Goodling and others for not fully briefing him.
The declaration does not identify the senior official, but says the admission was made to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Judiciary panel who is leading the U.S. attorneys probe. The only two Justice officials who have testified in front of that committee about the firings are Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty.
Once again, we could be faced with a situation where someone gets in trouble for lying about something that wasn’t illegal to begin with.
March 26th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Once again, we could be faced with a situation where someone gets in trouble for lying about something that wasn?t illegal to begin with.
Isn’t that what happened to Bill Clinton?
You would think that people armed with the knowledge of what they did to a previous president would understand that they have no right to complain when it happens to them.
What on earth could they be worried about? It’s a simple concept. IF YOU TELL THE TRUTH, YOU WON’T BE ACCUSED OF PERJURY.
March 26th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I heard Leahy’s response, and laughed. The 110th Congress will be known as the witch hunt Congress. I don’t care who you are, you should invoke the fifth if called before them.
As for Repack’s comment, Bill lied under oath to the special prosecutor, then asked for the definition of “is” when called on it. The difference is huge, firing US Attorney’s for political reasons is completely justified, they are political appointees; lying, under oath, on the other hand isn’t.
March 26th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
What’s a “perjury trap”?
Gonzales didn’t want to admit to something embarrassing and so he lied about it, to Congress. You aren’t supposed to do that.
Of course, if something you do is so embarrassing that you feel the need to lie about it, maybe you shouldn’t have done it in the first place.
March 26th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
A “perjury trap” is one an investigator puts someone under oath to investigate something that isn’t even illegal — such as the U.S. Attorney story — in the hope that someone will be dumb enough to tell a lie that becomes the basis for a criminal charge.
In this case, the only motivation the Democrats had for holding hearings on this issue was political — to embarress the administration. There was no crime even possible here since those attorneys could have been fired at any time under the law.
The Bush Administration deserves to be skewered for a lot of things, firing a few attorneys isn’t one of them.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
But surely you acknowledge that Congress has the right to hold hearings simply for the purpose of determining what future policy should be? Surely you don’t condone lying under oath simply because the lie relates only to ordinary matters of policy as opposed to a criminal investigation?
March 26th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Bill lied under oath to the special prosecutor, then asked for the definition of ?is? when called on it.
If that is what you think took place, you need to read a newspaper pretty soon. Bill Clinton lied in a DEPOSITION in a CIVIL ACTION of no importance to the nation. His lie was not perjury, since the question was not germane to the inquiry, and because the case was settled out of court, and the deposition was moot, as though it had never happened.
The lie was about something that was not a crime.
The GOP and Richard Melon Scaife set up this “perjury trap” by feedng the Jones lawyers a question they knew would embarrass the president, but which had nothing to do with the Jones trial. The GOP deserves everything it gets in return for setting this precedent.