Will they be under oath?

security code word: story. Exactly what I'm concerned these officials will give.

So, our officials, who are paid by us, and work for us, will not testify in front of us. Why?

Well, these are small fish. It's probably worth skipping the C-Span show to get them on the record. It advances the investigation and accomplishes what needs to be accomplished. Seems good to me, keeps it moving.

There is little about this arangement I find commendable. Government leaders seem to forget that it's our government. If we are owed anything it is truth and transparency. It stinks and I'm angry about it.

Will Rep. Conyers ask why Monica Goodling was prosecuting low-level criminal cases out of the USA's office in Alexandria in the fall of 2004?
I posted the details of some of her cases at the TPM Cafe. A passport fraud case took all of a month to end in a plea bargain.

I also posted a link to today's Washington Post story about Goodling. No surprise, Goodling graduated from Regent U. in 1999 and went to work for the GOP as an oppo researcher. Goodling probably worked for Tim Griffin.

The WP refers to Goolding's six-month stint at the USA's office in Alexandria but does not provide dates. I'm almost certain it was in the fall of 2004. McNulty would know why Goodling was prosecuting low-level criminal cases because he was the USA at the time.

Why would Goodling want to pad her resume with routine low-level criminal cases in the fall of 2004? Was she was in line for a USA position?

If Goodling was in line for a USA slot, the scheme to replace the USAs was in place before the fall of 2004 and replacements had already been selected.

I find it hard to believe that even Karl Rove would consider placing Goodling in a USA slot but someone has to ask why Goodling, a high-level DOJ official, was prosecuting those low-level criminal cases in the fall of 2004.

Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and the other leaders have agreed that "investigators would keep the content of the interviews confidential pending consultation with Department officials."

Anybody else read this as "we will keep them confidential for as long as we please"? If it gives a fig leaf for those testifying to avoid immediate retaliation by the White House, it sounds good to me. Then leak them, and refer them to a grand jury. When the hack USA in charge of DC does not convene a grand jury, push for independent prosecutor.

As long as move things along, you can push the legal and political agenda in a pincer movement.

Seriously, this sucks. Where do we live, in Soviet Russia or in the United States of America? It's becoming harder and harder to tell the difference.

Code word: kill fascists

(kidding)

The point of the exercise is to get these people on record without taking the issue of executive priviledge before a Supreme Court that's been stacked with authoritarians. They already made the the guy president. They could very make him unaccountable.

I don't see why Dems are caving here. No oaths??? No public hearings??? Is this because Conyers is beginning to feel this issue has no legs? Because if that's not the case, then he is not only doing the American public a disservice, but it wastes a huge opportunity to rally the base on the left.

The Sampson testimony yesterday showed us how weasel-y these political appointees are. The American public needs to continue to see this. Why? So they can feast their eyes on the types of junior execs our "CEO President" has been installing in key positions. It's time we really played up the incompetence of these folks and their underlying philosophy - "government isn't good for anything except getting my party the spoils. Screw public service. Screw the common man and woman. Government is about cementing Republican elites." Get that message out and we win big in 2008.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/

This is the only way that info is going to get out to reach critical mass. The House needs to gather more information and eventually they will have the goods on the big fish. I don't view this as caving at all.

Absent more details, I don't see that this is nearly as big a problem as everyone is making it out to be. Sure, it would be great if these people were trotted out on C-SPAN, but Monica Goodling is not the prize. If this moves the investigation forward, good.

Just because the witnesses aren't publicly testifying now, doesn't mean they never will.

In the event they do publicly testify, the questioners will have a huge advantage if they know in advance what the answers to the questions will be.

We won't know right away what they say in these interviews, but best of all, neither will Bush.

Put me down on the side of "Good move House Dems."

You may email the committee with your views here:

http://judiciary.house.gov/Contact.aspx

I don't ike it.

Conyers knows what he is doing. Give him some credit. Let the committee get more information quickly withou the circus atmosphere and Republican (and Democratic) posturing for cameras. When they have more information they'll have a better idea how to proceed against Gonzales and the President's office.

Wrong. They do not have to go to court to get testamony from anyone at DOJ. That fight comes with executive privilage. There is no excuse to take this behind closed doors. Do you not think that one of the bootlicking toadies in Congress will tell Bush exactly what is said? C'mon. This just takes the spotlight OFF the testamony, allows much more spin, and denies the public the moment when they go... "Gee, that guys sure has forgotten a lot of stuff since last December." I'm in PR, and this is not the way to kee this is the newspaper and the public eye where it belongs.

Jan Hammer - I am a huge huge fan.

Cervantes,

You have it right. This advances the investigation and if it helps the crooks, it helps only the low-level crooks. This puts the ones at the top into the cross-hairs, and it does it in my lifetime.

We need to expose the crooks and criminals at the top, not spend a lot of time and engergy on sturm und drang (That's an old Texas phrase) that provides colorful excitement but leads nowhere.

"So, our officials, who are paid by us, and work for us, will not testify in front of us. Why?"

Because republicans under rove/gwb believe in small govt. So small no one can see anything they're doing.

I agree people should hold their fire and see what the dems do. So far, they are handling this well and are doing a decent job. It is not in dems interest to have this side-lined into a court battle over EP. Better to get as much evidence as possible now, one step at a time, and as the hearings unfold. They still have the option to force the public testimony of these witnesses should the WH or the witnesses play games. And the battle over EP can easily be re-invoked at any time.

I agree, though, that eventually, everything has to be made public, and any caving in by dems agreeing to keep stuff secret that is not otherwise classified cannot be tolerated. But at this point, my read is that the dems have the upper hand here and the WH is in retreat.

My strictly amateur take is to believe that Conyers is a smart enough guy that if he thinks he can get somewhere with this approach, I'm willing to wait and see. I mean, it's not like so far he's been weak on this.

Still, it is quite offensive that on a matter where there is no apparent need for secrecy except this claim of executive privilege - in particular no national security implications - a deal can be struck whereby Congress & the White House can know something but the public cannot. If executive privilege genuinely applies then they should not be able to talk to Congress at all; if it does not, they should be able to testify in public and under oath. Seems straightforward to me.

I'll try to keep my mind open to the perspective voiced by cervantes, bp and others here: that it's about getting the small fish on record. The fact that none of the big fish are named looks like the result of a "getting to yes" negotiation: focusing on the few things they can agree on and leaving the big deal-breaker stuff for a later round.

On the other hand it reeks so bad of the same feckless caving-in behavior they succumbed to with the 9/11 commission and whatnot that it's hard not to feel like they just can't kick the habit, even when they're holding all the cards.

If there's a transcript containing juicy tidbits, these interviews won't stay "confidential" for long.

Conyers' shop will leak just about as much as Ken Starr's.

I wonder why the Democrats allowed this. It stinks and it makes it seem the Dems caved in to the Repubs once again.

I'm disappointed in Conyers.

This is completely unacceptable. Dems have the majority of the populace behind them, so why are they caving? Americans are disgusted with the continual secrets and lies. Ms. Goodling ESPECIALLY needs to either testify under oath, or GO TO JAIL!!!

All in all, more bricks in the wall. Please make it a very tight fit Rep. Conyer's with the mortar applied just right.

I believe this is a good thing. Proper sequestration of the witnesses should be the key.

What if the whole firing-of-eight-attorneys
was originally concocted just to get rid of Lam?

What if Rove, Miers, and Gonzales originally decreed seven other US Attorneys be placed on a list simply in order to give a plausible cover to Lam's dismissal? If a bundle of eight attorneys were replaced, with a "performance" rationale for so doing, Lam's dismissal would stick out less like a sore thumb.

In the course of compiling this "smokescreen list," Rove, Miers, and Gonzales detected other targets for dismissal for political reasons, and added their names.

What do you think? This may be the reason why Miers originally suggested dismissing all 93 Bush appointees in 2005, an idea simply too cUmbersome to implement as a cover for the outing of one bad apple.

"investigators would keep the content of the interviews confidential pending consultation with Department officials."

Well a lot depends on how they define "confidential". Does that include not having lunch with your counterpart at Senate Judiciary?

That's the nice thing about being able to investigate from both sides of the Capitol. You have all kinds of opportunity to play Good Cop/Bad Cop.

Conyers wasn't born yesterday.

How does a guy like Sampson graduate from Law School and pass the Bar Exam with such a poor memory. I lost count of the "I don't remember"s at 75

I sure hope this is meant to be a crow bar intending to pry out information that can show the committee where to hunt next. The nightmare scenario comes in two flavors. Either the committee stops because off-record DoJ officials are freed to stonewall the inquiry or one or more Republicans on the committee will serve as a conduit of critical information back to the White House, warning Cheney & Rove of where the investigation might be heading next and who from DoJ might be ratting them out.

I hate to say this, but with the lockstep and secretive ways that Republicans have be conducting themselves for the last ten years, having any Republicans on this committee seems equivalent to ensuring that any police investigation into organized crime have at least one Mafia representative in the DA's office.

Slideguy said: "The point of the exercise is to get these people on record without taking the issue of executive priviledge before a Supreme Court..."

Point taken. There's no doubt in my mind that escalating this to his allies on the SCOTUS is exactly what W wants, and would be risky, as you say. However, this agreement seems to be ceding the issue altogether.

I can't see how the Dems can make any kind of case for getting Rove and Miers under oath in public now. That is, if they defer to the claim of executive priviledge for these mid-level DOJ functionaries, how can they credibly justify more strict requirements for WH advisers that counsel Bush directly?

I think this is bad, even if only because it makes the good guys look weak. If they can't stand toe-to-toe with even a corrupt president with approval ratings in the low 30s (or lower), we might as well just hang it up.

Or....

It could mean that someone has ALREADY agreed to spill beans and does not want to do it in public for fear of being killed.

So they interview eight in private.

Kinda like firing 8 attorneys when you want to really fire one.

Maybe this is a signal conyers wants someone higher up.

monicawatch -

the one "exposed" place she's been is her first year of law school in DC.

after that she transferred to regent.

anyone know anyone who was in lawschool with her that 1st year?

she truly has the look of someone who would be married with 5 kids - all wearing gingham dresses down to their ankles. so WHY is she not married?

Important question. (an affair - or a lesbian - or both?)

I think the analogy here might be to a confidential Grand Jury Investigation - work the underling to set up the higher ups. Initially I was appalled, but I think Conyers knows how to get this done...

"Truth is stranger than Fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't." - Mark Twain

monicawatch:

theory on the school change is this. regent was founded in 1990 but not fully accredited as a law school until 1996. non-accredited schools' students cannot receive federal financial aid.

my guess is that monica went to AU first, but when regent cleared up the accreditation thing, she switched.

to maintain a student body through the non-accredited years, regent would have had to spent a lot of its own money on financial aid for students. once the school was fully accredited, they now could spend that money on additional scholarships while other students could now come in with their financial aid.

and monica probably got some of that financial aid.

au/wash college of law was a tier two or three back in 1996 (not in the top 100 like it is today) so monica's average student status was consistent.

Uhh, don't see guys named Rove or Gonzales on that list... all smaller fish.

PTF

Yes, I follow your theory. But likely all those fundie places will keep her under wraps.

So maybe someone at AU recalls her from that year. Also her time in France bears investigating.

She knows how the repubs do research on people. So she likely knows how to conceal herself. Thus my question about that year in DC at AU. (is AU still affilliated with religion somehow? it once was)

this woman did yearbooks. was student body prez. knows how to bootlick.

with her long blond locks and gingham dress demeanor she likely overheard a lot

Security word: news. yes, we need more news of monica

Having to place "trust" in any politician IS NOT something we should accept. I don't want to be in the position of "needing" to trust others to interpret what I want to witness and judge for myself. I'm sick and tired of all the BAD information and BAD conclusions Americans reach based on distortion, hearsay and lies. The only judgement we should trust is our own. I am opposed to ALL SECRECY IN WHAT OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS DO, and I'm even leery of trusting them in claiming secrecy due to matters of national security or presidential privilege. I want near total open government, checks and balances, oversight and accountability. We shouldn't have to "trust" that what we are told is truthful when our forefather's design for our system of government eliminated our need to do so. We need to go back to what they so wisely intended.

Osage,

Hear hear! Well stated, and exactly right on all counts!

Monica's zeal for the cause will be quickly zapped when she realizes that all of the bootlicking she did for the Party is tossed aside as Karl and others scramble to cover themselves.

And she becomes the next Craig Livingstone.

Par for the course.

A few days ago I predicted in comments here on another thread that: the Dems will ultimately back down, never actually issue subpenas on Rove or Meirs, and would capitulate to whatever the White House was willing to offer. Because that would be par for the course.

The Dems won't actually stand tough on anything of any REAL significance on any of the MAJOR players. Yeah, they'll talk tough in front of the cameras with with few little guys that the administration will throw under the bus -- like Sampson -- but will stop short of taking any real action that would truly result in holding the administration to justice in any meaningful way.

Par for the course.

Cufford
Fresno, CA

This is a deal with the DOJ, not the White House. That's why you don't see Rove's name here, etc. The White House doesn't seem to be negotiating right now.

These interviews are conducted by congressional staff. That's good. The transcripts will be used. Open hearings with all or some of the DOJ officials are possible. If these guys don't point at each other, they will point at the White House, like Sampson ultimately did. That's not bad. That's moving forward.

One issue the DOJ hasn't agreed to is to re-release the documents without so many apparently key redactions.

All this blathering about "sequestering the witnesses" and the "Prisoner's Dilemma" is dunderheaded. These witnesses are not in jail. Nothing in what we know of this agreement prohibits them from communicating with each other or being de-briefed by the White House as soon as they walk out of the committee room. Even if that were prohibited they would do it anyway. The only way to keep the later ones from knowing what the committee asked the earlier ones would be to interview them all separately but simultaneously. And that would hamper the questioning.

I hope Conyers is playing this right (and if not, maybe Leahy will). If Conyers ever tries to call Rove or Miers in the future, Bush will have a relatively strong claim for executive privilege (Miers and Rove advise him directly). It would go to the Supreme Court, which could either side with Bush or put the matter on ice for many months. If Conyers had not made this deal, Bush would have been stuck with a much weaker executive privilege claim on the whole lot of them. "Aah need to receive confidential advice from these ten people--eight of whom I have barely met." Even this authoritarian Supreme Court couldn't rubber-stamp that.

SqueakyRat:

I think you got it. The point is that these are like depositions, or discovery, whatever. By keeping them private, nobody can coordinate their story exactly, or at least be aware of what to play dumb about. If anyone spills the beans, even a little, all hell could break loose in open hearings.

This is very good news for Dems, additionally it allows more focused public testimony. Instead of a public looking fishing trip, or excess flogging of public, and maybe innocent, public officials, hearings will be more explosive.

It is great to see Gibbons under scrutiny, and now that CREW has leaned into Issa's complicity in teh whole sordid Cunningham scandal, we may see some more of the worst elements in our government ejected or disempowered by their own misdeeds.

Opps...not html. the 1st paragraph above is quoted from another post above.

SqueakyRat:

We're talking about scumbags here who lie routinely. Just because they'll meet to discuss their testilying doesn't mean they'll be wholly honest with each other. They are all looking out for #1 first, and if any of them thinks they'll get a better deal from congress by outing the other rats, they'll do it and lie to their cohorts about having done it.

And even if none of them do, they won't know for sure, and it breeds mistrust among them.

Some prisoners do think of such things before getting caught and coordinate their stories in advance, but the police are still often able to break them.

Fuck closed and secret government! Someone needs to immediately draft up a FOIA request on this. This type of inside the beltway bullshit is dangerous and must be stopped.

Cufford,

So you came here to say "I told you so"? Thanks dude, cause if there's anything we need, it's a good dose of defeatism.

As numerous people have noted, including me, there is plenty of room for this manouvre to work out quite well for the Democrats, and to actually obtain more information than would be obtained from public hearings.

But you're too busy using ever data point to "prove" your assertion the Democrats will just back down and let this slide.

If that was the plan, they could have done it weeks ago. Leahy seems quite pissed and now even Specter was getting feisty in how he took on Sampson.

Waxman is all over the GSA business and provides another angle at Rove.

You have given up before the fight was well and truly began. Begone.

Good Cop, Bad Cop. If that's the strategy between the House and the Senate then I believe it