All Eyes on Monica Goodling

14 May 2007 // Attorney General Alberto Gonzales emerged mostly unscathed from last week's face-off with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee over his role in the U.S. Attorney firings. And with Republicans on the committee offering Gonzales near-universal support, the tone on Capitol Hill shifted from "Gonzales is going" to "Gonzales is staying."

But there's one big wild card that's yet to be thrown into play, and that's Monica Goodling, Gonzales' former White House liaison. Last week, Chief Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia approved a House request to grant limited immunity to Goodling in exchange for her testimony.

Goodling, who resigned her post April 7, previously told the committee that she would assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. She now has the opportunity to shed light on her key role in a firing process that has remained shrouded in mystery, despite the release of thousands of Justice Department e-mails and the testimony of a number of top officials. According to congressional staffers, Democrats hope to have her testify publicly before Memorial Day.

"She's worked very hard," says John Dowd, a lawyer for Goodling at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. "She'll do her level best to be candid and forward in her testimony."

That promise isn't likely to reassure Gonzales or other Bush administration officials involved in the dismissal of at least eight U.S. Attorneys. Democrats contend that the prosecutors were fired to shield Republicans targeted in public corruption probes or to punish those U.S. Attorneys who failed to push voter fraud investigations.

And though there may be a feeling that Gonzales has at last stemmed the tide against him, it looks premature to declare victory before Goodling says what she knows about the attorney general's and the White House's involvement in the firings.

"Before people get too cocky about the attorney general surviving, [they] need to sit back and await that event," says a senior administration official close to the investigation.

Meanwhile, lawyers for the House and Senate judiciary committees are expected to continue to negotiate with the Justice Department for the release of additional documents related to the firings. To date, say those familiar with the negotiations, a key sticking point has been whether to allow Congress to have unredacted copies of e-mails and documents that discuss the possible ouster of current U.S. Attorneys who ultimately were not asked to resign. In addition, the Justice Department faces a May 15 deadline to respond to a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee for e-mails in the department's possession to and from White House political adviser Karl Rove.

As the negotiations over documents have progressed, congressional investigators have expressed frustration over whether the Justice Department has been adhering to the discovery standards it expects of companies that are targets of a fraud investigation. According to one staffer involved in the investigation, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, Acting Associate Attorney General William Mercer and former Gonzales chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson all told investigators privately that Justice had never instructed them to preserve all documents related to the dismissals.

In the meantime, investigators working under House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., are expected to push forward to interview seven additional Justice officials. They include Steven Biskupic, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Biskupic's name appeared on one of the early firing lists, and he was a prosecutor in a district where the White House expressed concerns about voter fraud to Gonzales and other Justice officials. Also expected to submit to interviews are a number of officials who have worked in Justice's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, an office that serves as a clearinghouse for information on U.S. Attorney's Offices.

But each of those Justice staffers has only a relatively tangential connection to the firings. That means that for both the administration and congressional Democrats, all eyes will be on Goodling, who could potentially bury the scandal or offer testimony that implicates the White House and the attorney general in not just mismanagement but impropriety.

After her testimony, says the senior administration official, "then people can start making prognostications about whether [Gonzales] has survived or not."