It was easy to see that Monica Goodling was up to no good as the liaison between the White House and the Attorney General's office. Pleading the fifth to avoid questioning by Congress was a dead giveaway, but it wasn't definitive proof. Just as she got an immunity deal to testify on the Hill, emails in the weekly document dump on Friday show she was possibly committing obstruction of justice.
From Crooks and Liars:
Another Friday, another document dump from the DOJ. As I was scanning through this set, I came across this one from Monica "I plead the Fifth" Goodling. Notice the instruction in boldface (see below the fold for full size image):
Yes, that's an instruction to delete documents. And notice the date: February 12, 2007. That's well after Congress began investigating this matter. I don't believe any subpoenas or document requests had yet been issued (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that), but it was pretty clear by then that document requests were likely.
It is possible that she was just careless and sloppy, but as a senior legal counsel....give me a break. She knew what she was doing. We are talking about the Bush Administration. Nothing is done by mistake when covering up their mess. That does not include foreign and domestic policy blunders of course. Since this was most likely deliberate while knowing that they were under investigation by Congress, it constitutes obstruction. I may not be a lawyer, and Goodling may have gone to a fourth tier law school, but I know, she knows and any lawyer does as well that Goodling committed a serious error.
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