Dan Froomkin, who writes the White House briefing at Washington Post.com, doesn't think the illegal actions cited in the DOJ report were originated at the DOJ.  After all, Monica Goodling was the White House liaison:

The big fish keep swimming away.

The latest investigation into the overt politicization of the Department of Justice has meticulously documented how a handful of young political appointees blatantly violated federal laws and Justice Department policies by hiring career employees based on the extent of their devotion to Republican dogma.

But the report doesn't address who is responsible for creating the culture of corruption in which these aides thrived.

Who asked them to behave this way? Or, barring an explicit request, how did they come to conclude that this was what their superiors expected of them? Who twisted the Justice Department, designed to operate with a large degree of independence, into a political adjunct of the White House?

And is it really just a coincidence that Monica Goodling, the central culprit of this latest report, held the title of White House liaison?

A June report by the same two Justice Department offices that produced yesterday's findings concluded that over a five year period, aides stocked a prestigious hiring program with young conservatives, intending to reshape the department's ranks. Two more internal reports are in the works, one about political interference with the Civil Rights Division and the other about the role of politics in the administration's controversial firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Whether the eager, young politicos who carried out these policies are held accountable is one question. But who was pulling their strings is another.

It's unlikely that former absentee landlord Alberto Gonzales was a key player here. Not only did some of these practices pre-date him, but his primary task, which he bungled, appears to have been to conceal the fact that he wasn't the one calling the shots.

Indeed, it's hard to reach any conclusion other than that White House political operatives masterminded a plan to defile the Justice Department's mission in the short run and to seed its ranks with people who will be in a position to continue the corruption for a long time to come.

An editorial in today's New York Times challenges the Attorney General to prosecute the illegalities that occurred at the Department of Justice.  A report released yesterday by the department outlines the illegal actions taken by senior staffers.  If crimes were committed, punishment is warranted -- especially at the Department of Justice:

Mr. Mukasey’s response to the report focused on making sure that the improper and illegal activity “does not occur again.” He does not seem to understand that, as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, he has a duty to investigate crimes committed in his own department and to punish the offenders. The report’s authors could not interview Ms. Goodling because she no longer works at the Justice Department. Mr. Mukasey, who has subpoena power, presumably could get her to talk — as well as Mr. Rove, Ms. Miers and all of the others who need to testify under oath before this matter can be put to rest.

The strength of American democracy depends on our ability to be shocked by abuses like these — and to punish them appropriately.

Newly released report finds illegalities in Department of Justice hiring practices.  We'll have more as it develops:

A new Justice Department report concludes that politics illegally influenced the hiring of career prosecutors and immigration judges, and largely lays the blame on top aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Monday's report singles out the department's former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, for violating federal law and Justice Department policy by discriminating against job applicants who weren't Republican or conservative loyalists.

The 140-page report does not indicate whether Goodling or former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson could face any charges. None of those involved in the discriminatory hiring still work at Justice, meaning they will avoid any department penalties.

However, Justice investigators said that Goodling, at least, may lose her license to practice law as a result of the findings.

Gonzales was largely unaware of the hiring decisions by two of his most trusted aides. The report said his aides' decisions weeded out Democrats and that Goodling also rejected at least one lesbian job applicant.

Just about the same time we learned Scooter Libby was going to jail, this article appeared on the website of the Washington Post: 

The Justice Department is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales sought to influence the testimony of a departing senior aide during a March meeting in Gonzales's office, according to correspondence released today.

In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the two officials who are leading an internal Justice Department investigation of the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys last year said their inquiry includes the Gonzales meeting, which was revealed during testimony last month from former Gonzales aide Monica M. Goodling.

"This is to confirm that the scope of our investigation does include this matter," wrote Glenn A. Fine, the inspector general, and H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel of the Office of Professional Responsibility.

The disclosure could represent a serious legal threat to the embattled attorney general. Fine's office is empowered to refer matters for criminal prosecution if warranted.

It's not just the firings of the U.S. Attorneys that demands further inquiry at the Department of Justice.  For that controversy, CREW wants a special prosecutor.  No, it's not just the firings, it's the hirings, too.  The internal investigations over the firings has been expanded to review hiring irregularities:

"We have expanded the scope of our investigation to include allegations regarding improper political or other considerations in hiring decisions within the Department of Justice," Inspector General Glenn A. Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, wrote in joint letters to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

The widening inquiry is likely to pose an additional challenge for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who is already facing lawmakers' calls for his resignation and a potential no-confidence vote by the Senate. While the U.S. attorney dismissals have prompted wide political criticism, improper hiring practices could be deemed a violation of the law.

Justice officials had previously disclosed that Fine and Jarrett's investigation would include hiring decisions made by Monica M. Goodling, a former Gonzales aide who confirmed last week in Senate testimony that she "crossed the line" in considering political affiliation when hiring career prosecutors and immigration judges.

Federal law and internal Justice Department rules bar taking such affiliations into account in hiring career personnel, the Justice Department has said. Yesterday's letter revealed that the internal inquiry will examine the hiring practices of Justice officials besides Goodling and outside the attorney general's office.

The expansion comes in the wake of claims by former Justice officials that selections by the Attorney General's Honors Program and the department's Summer Law Intern Program were rigged in favor of candidates with connections to conservative or Republican groups. In response, the department this spring agreed to place them back under the control of career officials.

Busy day for Monica Goodling who testified with immunity yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee.

She admitted her own wrong doing when it came to hiring new lawyers at the Department of Justice:

A former top Justice Department aide testified on Wednesday that she had “crossed the line” in considering the political beliefs of applicants for nonpartisan legal jobs and suggested that earlier testimony by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and another top official about the dismissals of federal prosecutors may have been flawed.

She testified that she really had no significant role in getting the U.S. Attorneys fired:

But she said that even though she was the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House, she did not play a significant role in the dismissals and never discussed them with Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser or Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel.

“I did not hold the keys to the kingdom as some have suggested,” Ms. Goodling said to the House Judiciary Committee.

She intimated that the Attorney General of the United States may have misled Congress (while apparently trying to get their stories straight):

Ms. Goodling appeared to contradict Mr. Gonzales’s testimony to the committee this month in which he said he had not spoken to his senior aides since the firings “to protect the integrity of this investigation.”

During a meeting in March before she resigned, Ms. Goodling said, Mr. Gonzales asked her questions that left her uncomfortable. She thought he might be trying to compare recollections, so their stories would be consistent if they were questioned about their actions, she said. “I just thought maybe we shouldn’t have that conversation,” she said.

And, like her former boss Alberto Gonzales, she threw for Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty under the bus:

Ms. Goodling also accused Paul J. McNulty, the outgoing deputy attorney general, of misleading Congress when he testified on Feb. 6 to a Senate panel. Specifically, she said Mr. McNulty knew more details about the White House involvement in the firings than he acknowledged in his testimony.

“I believe he was not fully candid,” she said.

The hearing can be watched live on C-SPAN3. TPM Muckraker will be live blogging Ms. Goodling's testimony.

Today's Washington Post has a profile of Monica Goodling:

A 1999 graduate of Regent University law school in Virginia Beach with six months of prosecutorial experience, Goodling was among a small coterie of young aides to Gonzales who were remarkable for their inexperience and autonomy in deciding the fates of seasoned Justice Department lawyers, according to current and former officials who worked with the group.

She worked closely last year with D. Kyle Sampson, then the attorney general's chief of staff, sifting through lists of U.S. attorneys considered for removal, according to congressional interviews and Justice Department documents released to the public. Goodling also was central to the department's stumbling efforts to defend its handling of the firings of nine prosecutors, at times by attacking their reputations. She resigned in April.

The Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers (D-MI), wants Monica Goodling to comply with the subpoena issued to her.  She'll be testifying (with immunity) tomorrow before that committee.  To Conyers, that includes unredacted documents about the firing of the U.S. Attorneys:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) wants more information than Monica Goodling, a former senior aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, is willing to provide when she testifies before Conyers’s panel Wednesday.

John Dowd, Goodling’s attorney, said his client refuses to hand over unredacted documents related to the firings of U.S. attorneys last year because they are official Department of Justice (DoJ) documents and she does not have the department’s permission to do so.

That response was not sufficient for Conyers, who demanded in a follow-up letter that Goodling, who has resigned in the wake of the U.S. attorney scandal, comply fully with the committee’s subpoena.

Next week could be a rough one for the Attorney General.  Monica Goodling, with her immunity in-hand, will be testifying on before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, May 23rd.   Worse for him, however, could be a Senate vote of no-confidence: 

Democrats announced on Thursday they will seek a U.S. Senate vote of "no confidence" in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, hopeful it will prompt President George W. Bush's embattled friend to resign. 

But the White House brushed off the Democrats' latest move in a long-running battle with Gonzales as "nothing more than a meaningless political act" and said the attorney general had "the full confidence of the president."

Democrats, who control the Senate, said they intend to hold a vote of "no confidence" in Gonzales as early as next week and expect it to pass with the support of a number of Republicans.

Looks like we will soon be hearing the testimony from the former Justice Department liaison to the White House:

A federal judge today ordered a former aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to testify in Congress about the firings of U.S. attorneys, granting her limited immunity from prosecution so she can tell the committee what she knows.

Under the order from U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the District of Columbia, Monica M. Goodling "may not refuse to testify, and may not refuse to provide other information" if asked by Congress.