Let's just recap quickly, as there have been quite a few interesting developments over the past 12 hours:
1. Monica Goodling of A.G. Gonzales' staff has lawyered up, and her attorney (John Dowd, of Pete Rose and John McCain / Keating S&L scandal fame) fired off a lengthy letter to whoever in congress would read it, stating that she will invoke her 5th amendment right not to testify before a congressional committee. There's a whole lot of nuance to this piece of the story, but suffice it to say that Goodling's way out on a limb with her invocation of the 5th. And Dowd's on very shaky legal ground. Conventional wisdom: Dowd's letter is fishing for an immunity deal for Goodling from Sen. Pat Leahy.
2. Alberto Gonzales did an appearance on NBC last night, with Bush 41 sidekick Pete Williams conducting the interview - and gawd, if Abu Al came off that bad with a supporter and journalistic enabler like Williams, what will actually happen when someone in congress is tossing him some hardball questions - under oath? Keith Olbermann did a "must see" segment [VIDEO upper right] on AttorneyGate yesterday evening. Conventional wisdom: Gonzales is as incompetent as he appears to be (a hallmark of most Bush regime appointees).
3. The White House is apparently...
... selectively leaking emails that it won't disclose to congress under claims of "executive privilege". In doing so, another DOJ underling - Assistant Attorney General Paul McNulty - is being thrown under a bus. How many more sheep in the justice department will be thrown under the bus before one of them really starts to squeal? I guess the Bush regime learns nothing from history (re: Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre). Conventional Wisdom: The hail mary passes are starting, and the whole case is devolving quickly. By selectively leaking previously undisclosed emails, the White House is damaging its executive privilege claims. The lawyers in the regime know the jig is up. And they know what's really at stake - their own professional careers (and perhaps freedom from jail time).
4. Hammerin' Hank Waxman has written letters to the RNC (and copied everyone in the world) directing that the RNC and its email service provider are to preserve all internet email correspondence on private email domains of the RNC. Waxman believes that there has been correspondence on RNC email domains regarding executive branch operational decisions that should have been limited exclusively to government email domains (eop.gov, anyone?). Conventional Wisdom: This could be explosive - and will most certainly set up yet another constitutional showdown between the executive branch and congress.
If I were a betting man, last Wednesday I would have placed a large wager on Gonzales having resigned by Friday due to internal pressure from the leadership of the Republican Party (and I'm not necessarily speaking about elected officials). He is hanging on by the barest of threads. This is not playing well for the GOP, and the elected representatives in congress (both Senate and House) have to be able to read the handwriting on the wall. Polling just released by USAToday is clearly indicating that a vast majority of the public favors further investigation by congress. There is a general election approaching next year, and the longer this drags out, the worse it's going to be for the Republican Party. It's already bad - but unless they can get Alberto Gonzales off of the front page very quickly, this is just going to keep festering and festering. More importantly, I now know in my heart of hearts that this scandal goes all the way to the top. If George Bush was not intimately involved in the entire proceeding, Goodling (the designated runner between DOJ and the White House) would not be invoking the fifth. If he were not intimately involved in attempts to obstruct justice (San Diego) and tamper with elections (New Mexico), the coverup and denials simply wouldn't be this strong. And let's not forget that these are arguably among the least egregious potential crimes committed by the Bush regime.
My prediction: the investigations won't stop with Gonzales, even when Bush reluctantly lets Abu Al fall on his own sword (and mark my words, it will happen, sooner than later). When all is said and done, and when we look back at this scandal from a historical perspective, I think we'll all be a bit surprised that, after all of the other malfeasance the Bush regime was involved in, AttorneyGate was the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess you go to impeachment with the scandal you have, not the scandal you might like to prosecute…
Tagged as: prosecutorgate, olbermann, alberto gonzales
Richard Blair is the blogmaster of All Spin Zone.
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