ParfumGigi@aol.com

24 mai, 2007 19:48

Jason McLure and Emma Schwartz
Legal Times
05-24-2007

A former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted to "crossing the line" in vetting the political loyalties of candidates for positions as career federal prosecutors in testimony Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

Monica Goodling, who served as senior counsel and White House liaison to Gonzales until last month, also testified that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, the department's No. 2 official, had provided Congress with inaccurate and misleading information on a number of points during his own testimony before the Senate in February. McNulty resigned his position last week, citing personal financial concerns.

"I believe the deputy was not fully candid," Goodling said.

Goodling's testimony came amid the continuing congressional inquiry into the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys last year. That investigation has grown to include allegations of politicization in other areas of the department. Democrats have alleged that the prosecutors were fired for investigating public corruption cases that harmed Republicans or for refusing to bring voter fraud cases that would hamper Democratic electoral prospects. The Justice Department has disputed that characterization, but despite the release of thousands of documents and the testimony of many of its top officials, it remains unknown exactly who was responsible for selecting those to be fired.

Goodling did little to clear that up.

Documents and testimony from other Justice officials indicate Goodling played a key role in the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys last year, but on Wednesday Goodling attempted to distance herself from the process by which U.S. Attorneys were selected for dismissal.

She said she did not know the reasons why six of the seven U.S. Attorneys fired on a single day in December were asked to go, saying that she played a larger role in the department's botched response to questions about the firings after the fact.

"I was responsible more for after the plan was implemented than for the plan itself," she said.

Goodling said she was not familiar with the origins of the firing plan, or the extent to which former White House counsel Harriet Miers or White House political adviser Karl Rove were involved in generating it.

Goodling said that early in 2006, she had recommended that Paul Charlton, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, and Daniel Bogden, the U.S. Attorney for Nevada, be added to the list of those to be fired. But Goodling said that she did not know if Gonzales' then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, heeded her recommendation.

Charlton and Bogden were added to the list of those to be fired months later, and were dismissed along with five other U.S. Attorneys on Dec. 7. Goodling also said that she had twice asked that Anna Mills Wagoner, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, be removed from the list of those to be fired because Wagoner had been a strong backer of an anti-gun initiative and the Patriot Act reauthorization.

She also went over a discussion she had with Gonzales that made her "uncomfortable." A few days before her departure from Justice -- after the department had already opened an internal probe into the dismissals -- she had a conversation with Gonzales in which he described his recollection of the process that went into the firings. "He laid it out a little bit of it and then he asked me if I had any reaction to his iteration," she said. "I did not know if it was appropriate for us both to be discussing our recollections."

During her tenure as White House liaison, Goodling said that her primary responsibility had been the hiring of political appointees at the Justice Department. However, she also retained involvement in the hiring of career assistant U.S. Attorneys in offices where the U.S. Attorney was serving on an interim basis -- a duty that had fallen to her in a previous job in Justice's Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys.

Goodling admitted that she had delayed the hiring of Seth Adam Meneiro, a Howard University graduate who had done civil rights work at the Environmental Protection Agency, to become an assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington, D.C., over concerns about Meneiro's political loyalties. That action, which generated a complaint from interim U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, led Justice investigators to begin a probe of Goodling's actions.

Goodling said Wednesday that she made a "snap judgment" when she reviewed Meneiro's résumé. "I regret it," she said.

Meneiro wasn't the only career applicant to face a political litmus test.

"I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions," Goodling said. "And may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions."

She also said that she had researched the political contributions of some candidates for immigration judge positions and career staffers seeking internal transfers. Goodling said she may also have done the same when reviewing candidates to become career assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Goodling also launched a fusillade of accusations at McNulty, whose job as deputy attorney general makes him the Justice Department's chief operating officer.

Goodling said that McNulty, during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, "was not fully candid about his knowledge of White House involvement" in the decision to fire the U.S. Attorneys. She also said that McNulty was not forthright about his knowledge of the White House's interest in the appointment of Timothy Griffin, a former aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove and Republican National Committee opposition researcher, to become U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Additionally, she alleged, McNulty did not disclose the extent of his knowledge about allegations that Griffin had been involved in "caging" African-American votes during the 2004 elections, and inaccurately described the Justice Department's assessment of a commission that reviewed candidates to become U.S. Attorney in California.

McNulty has reportedly told congressional investigators that errors in his testimony were a result of Goodling withholding information about the firings from him during a briefing in advance of his testimony.

"The allegation is false," Goodling said. "I did not withhold information from the deputy."

Late Wednesday, McNulty took issue with Goodling's testimony. He issued a statement, saying: "I testified truthfully at the Feb. 6, 2007, hearing based on what I knew at that time. Ms. Goodling's characterization of my testimony is wrong and not supported by the extensive record of documents and testimony already provided to Congress."

The dispute highlights a widening rift between Gonzales and his top deputy over responsibility for the firings. Shortly after McNulty resigned last week, Gonzales emphasized that McNulty was the official most responsible for selecting the U.S. Attorneys to be fired.

While Democrats on the committee expressed frustration that Goodling was unable to explain precisely who had selected a number of the U.S. Attorneys to be dismissed, most Republicans indicated that they felt the investigation had run its course.

"This committee has spent $250,000 of taxpayer money investigating the replacement of U.S. Attorneys whose terms have expired," said James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. "With this fishing expedition, there ain't no fish in the water."