Someone's Going Under the Bus...

Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee voted to give Alberto Gonzales’ ex-aide Monica Goodling immunity from prosecution. If you’re not up on the story, here it is in a series of links.

Monica Goodling threatens to plead the fifth if she is subpoenaed by Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the eight fired U.S. Attorneys.

She was the highest official to plead the fifth since Oliver North during Iran-Contra, and she is the highest official in the Justice Department to have ever done it. Not surprisingly, she resigns.

To compel her testimony the committee voted to give her immunity.

So she has a pretty interesting past. Basically, she’s a life long Christian conservative, who went to Pat Robertson’s law school, that school has sent over 150 Evangelical Christian Political Activists into our government’s federal bureaucracies. She rapidly rose through the ranks of the Justice Department, ending up as one of Alberto Gonzales’ top aids.

Here she is looking delighted to be squeezed by Rove

So what is she going to say? Will she stay loyal? Will she take the fall Oli North style? She’s so young, taking the fall seems particularly costly for her. But if she doesn’t give them any crime she’s committed, she should expect a perjury charge for lying about the fifth. So it’s basically a question of who she implicates in her testimony. Since she plead the fifth, I’m guessing she’s going to gush. If she was staying loyal, she would go in front of the panel and magically forget Alberto style, no need to pull your constitutional rights. Can you imagine any strategic advantage to pleading the fifth if you’re tying to cover up a political power grab? I can’t see it. There is an advantage to pleading the fifth if you did something wrong and don’t have confidence in your boss’s ability to cover it up. So maybe we’ll get lucky, maybe she’ll provide substantive evidence of Alberto Gonzales’ GOP inspired redesign of the justice department. Hell maybe she’ll even squeal on Rove. I can’t imagine he didn’t make a number of sweaty, beady eyed sexual advances. We’ll find out soon…