Why Is a DOJ Lawyer Taking the Fifth?

[maddezmom]

Why Is a DOJ Lawyer Taking the Fifth?
Wednesday, Mar. 28, 2007 By REYNOLDS HOLDING

The strangest event so far in the U.S. attorney-firing mess may be the decision by a Justice Department lawyer to plead the Fifth rather than risk incriminating herself in testimony before Congress Thursday.

Monica Goodling, counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and liaison to the White House, cited the politically charged and "perilous environment" of the House and Senate judiciary committees in refusing Monday to testify about her part in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. In a letter to the Senate committee, her lawyer says the "potential for legal jeopardy" from "even her most truthful and accurate testimony" is "very real," and cites the recent conviction of I. Lewis Libby for lying during a CIA-leak investigation.

To use a technical legal term, huh?

Before Goodling, 33, can assert the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, she must believe that her testimony could somehow lead to evidence that she committed a crime. So what's the crime she's worried about? The mention of Libby suggests that it's perjury, but as Professor Orin Kerr, a criminal law expert at George Washington Law School, points out, you can't take the Fifth to avoid being prosecuted for lies you plan to tell under oath.

Another possibility is that she believes Democratic members of Congress are on a mere witch hunt and will cook up charges against her, no matter what she says under oath. Her lawyer's letter alludes to this by mentioning that some members have already decided they were lied to by Bush Administration officials, and plan to "use the hearings to promote (their) political party." As a reason to plead the Fifth, though, "That's a new one," says Kerr. "I don't think I've ever come across that one before."

more:http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1603785,00.html

[BOSSHOG]

1. Because she is a sweet little darling christian girl

doing her best to work for her president and the mean evil, liberal sodomite democrats will badger her. And besides she'd tell the truth but someone else will lie and get her in trouble. That's exactly what happened to that other wonderful republican patriot scooter libby.

Just more conservative values on parade.

[spindrifter]

2. There are several possibilities:

suborning perjury is one--Ms. Goodling supposedly was part of the crowd that wanted McNulty to tell a different, materially false story to the Judiciary Committee. Another would be some variation of obstructing justice.
The real card that I believe they are playing is Goodling (Badling) takes the 5th as an end run around any Exec. Privilege arguments.

[murray hill farm]

3. By taking the 5th...

she is clearly saying that there were criminal actions...otherwise no reason to take the 5th...so as to "not incriminate herself" by answering the questions...by this action she has confirmed that there were, in fact, crimes commited.

[Penndems]

4. Pardon my French please, but this girl is full of shit

"She believes Democratic members of Congress are on a mere witch hunt and will cook up charges against her"? Give me a break!

Monica Goodling is exactly the type of sucker this Administration likes to recruit: She's naive, comes from a small town in Pennsylvania, and doesn't have the "street smarts" necessary to be effective in the Federal Government. Getting her undergraduate and post-graduate degrees from two fundamentalist colleges doesn't help one iota. The students who attend those types of universities are taught not to question authority, and get a distorted worldview of what public service is about. These people come to D.C., get a reality sucker-punch, and come to the realization that they're in over their heads. Now, she's whining and bitching that it's all partisan, they're out to get me, blah blah BLAH!

The bottom line: Young Monica has been party to decisions and incidents that were patently illegal, and now she's scared shitless, so she goes running to Akin Gump for protection.

Go to jail, Monica. Do not pass "Go". Do not collect two hundred dollars.

[L. Coyote]

5. She is`worried other actor lies will be believed and she will go down

for telling the truth. RIGHT!

Lots more DU posts, stories, links, etc. on this issue today:

Email-Gate FACTS: Felons, georgewbush.com, gwb43.com , et. al.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x523978

[PhilipShore]

6. Can't Congress just appoint a special prosecutor?

Time

If committee members believe Goodling's testimony is sufficiently valuable, they could offer her immunity from prosecution, leaving her without an excuse for refusing to testify. Or they could hold her in contempt of Congress. According to Kerr, federal law provides that a subpoenaed witness who refuses to testify or "to produce papers upon any matter under inquiry before either House ... or any committee of either House of Congress" shall be guilty of a misdemeanor "punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 and imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month nor more than twelve months."