House Offers Monica Goodling Immunity to Compel her Testimony on U.S. Attorney Scandal
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
The House Judiciary Committee has authorized an offer of immunity to compel testimony of former Justice Department-White House Liaison Monica Goodling, a key player in the U.S. Attorney scandal. The deal would legally prevent her from taking the Fifth before a Committee hearing as she has threatened.
32 members of the Committee brought the vote over the two-thirds threshold required by law; six voted against it and two were not present. A Democratic source told BuzzFlash that Goodling could still reject the deal, but "it would look terrible" since she would be legally protected from prosecution for anything (truthful) she says.
Her only possible motive for refusing to testify now would be to protect top officials who she has essentially admitted engaged in illegal activities when she threatened to take the Fifth in the first place.
Judiciary Chairman John Conyers assured the Committee that he did "not propose this step lightly," but that they have "exhausted all reasonable efforts to obtain Ms. Goodling's critical information short of providing her with limited use immunity." He also stressed that the immunity protection "does not take effect unless we use it to compel testimony from Ms. Goodling over her Fifth Amendment assertion" so she is still fair game until she actually testifies.
As unfortunate as it would be for Monica Goodling to escape justice for her actions, she has already resigned from her post. There remain bigger fish to fry that are still swimming in the Bush Administration cesspool.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
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