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Tuesday, April 3, 2007
U.S. Atty Probers Demand Goodling Any Way They Can
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., sent a letter today asking Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House, to appear in a closed-door interview to discuss what she knows about whether politics improperly played a role in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
Goodling, through her attorney, John M. Dowd, informed the House and Senate Judiciary committees last week that she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself by testifying in the probe.
“We are concerned that several of the asserted grounds for refusing to testify do not satisfy the well-established bases for a proper invocation of the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination,” wrote Conyers and Rep. Linda Sanchez, who leads the subcommittee investigating the firings.
“In addition, of course, the Fifth Amendment privilege, under long-standing Supreme Court precedents, does not provide a reason to fail to appear to testify; the privilege must be invoked by the witness on a question-by-question basis,” the lawmakers wrote.
Interviewing Goodling in public could “obviate the need to subpoena” her, forcing her to appear at a public hearing.
Such a proceeding, they wrote, would give people a chance to see and hear the specific questions to which Ms. Goodling is asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege and allow lawmakers and the public to draw inferences from her invocation of it.
Dowd defended his client’s decision not to testify.
“Threats of public humiliation for exercising her Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights are not well taken and are frowned upon by the courts,” Dowd said in a statement. “In a free country, every citizen should have the liberty to exercise their rights without threats or coercion.”
But Conyers and Sanchez dispute that. In their letter, they say that Goodling’s assertions are not “a valid basis for invoking the privilege against self-incrimination.”
Their letter states: “The fact that a few senators and members of the House have expressed publicly their doubts about the credibility of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general in their representations to Congress about the U.S. attorneys’ termination does not in any way excuse your client from answering questions honestly and to the best of her ability.”
“Of course, we expect (as we are sure you do) your client to tell the truth in any interview or testimony. The alleged concern that she may be prosecuted for perjury by the Department of Justice for fully truthful testimony is not only an unjustified basis for invoking the privilege and without reasonable foundation in this case, but also so far as we know an unwarranted aspersion against her employer.”
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Georgia Democratic Hopeful to Rally Backers
DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones said he is set to meet Tuesday evening with supporters to fire up his bid to become the Democratic candidate in the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Georgia.
“Georgia needs a conservative Democrat,” he said.
Jones said that if he were in office, he would serve as a conservative, but would “not be a yes man for George Bush.”
Republicans have not controlled federal spending nor provided leadership on immigration, he said. “This flies in the face of conservatism,” he said.
Last month, Jones filed paperwork to run for the seat held by incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss. Chambliss is rated among the most conservative senators.
Jones, a former Democratic state representative now in his second term as DeKalb CEO, has organized an exploratory campaign committee called Vernon Jones for Georgia.
His meeting with supporters Tuesday is at Manuel’s Tavern, a favorite meeting place for Democrats in the Atlanta area.
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You Know, Those Other Guys
Some rhetorical progress to report today at President Bush’s Rose Garden press conference. He is coming to terms with the name of the majority party in the United States Congress.
“In a time of war, it’s irresponsible for the Democrat leadership in, Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds,” he said.
Right the second time. It is the Democratic Party. It’s led by Democratic leadership, not Democrat leadership. Democrats long have complained that many Republicans intentionally say Democrat Party as some kind of partisan slur.
Bush did say “Democrat leaders” a couple of other times during the news conference. So this remains a work in progress,
Other moments of note on a sunny spring day in the Rose Garden. Bush cleared up confusion about which Bill he was calling on (CBS’ Plante or the Washington Examiner’s Sammon) by saying “The cute-looking one.” That would be television’s Bill Plante.
From the Department of New Presidential Nicknames, Bush called on NBC’s David Gregory by referring to him as “Dancer. Dancing man,” a reference to Gregory’s recent back-up dancer role at the Radio and TV Correspondents Association dinner that featured rappin’ Karl Rove.
“That was a beautiful performance, seriously,” Bush told Gregory not seriously.
And emergency sirens from somewhere in nearby DC were clearly heard as Bush was reeling of the dire consequences he sees if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq before the war is won.
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Fill ‘Er Up
Does the president know how much Americans are paying for a gallon of gas these days? Sort of.
“About $2.60-plus,” he said today at a Rose Garden news conference.
Correct! If the plus is about a dime.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports a national average of $2.707 a gallon for regular for the week that ended yesterday. That’s up from $2.610 for the previous week.
What’s up with the price hike, Mr. President?
“The price of crude oil is on the rise because people get spooked, for example, when it looks like there may be a crisis with a crude-oil producing nation, like Iran,” Bush said.
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