Last crook who stretched out his time on the public dole bought himself three extra months in prison for it.

I am not aware of any vesting threshold at 5 years for USAs. To my knowledge they are not any different as to retirement benefits than other similarly situated Fed employees. There is a commenter at FDL that did Fed retirement for a living although I am not sure if it is â€Retired Fedâ€. If I can find one of my AUSA friends this afternoon, I will ask. Probably your latter thought is closer to the mark. I doubt anyone will, but I would be interested in a â€means†determination to see if Dear Monica had the capability of covering her legal bills that accrued before her resignation. They had to have been very substantial considering it is John Dowd and Akin Gump. Although unlikely to be prosecuted, it would still constitute a wrongful act if she did not have the means at the time.

â€I hereby am submitâ€?

I wish her poor English skills didn’t matter, but, last I checked, she used to be a senior official at the Justice Department. This is either another sign that she was highly unqualified (likely) or a sign that she was in a rush to get this out under intense pressure from someone else (more likely).

pleading the 5th didn’t work

resigning didn’t work

what will the good christian lawyer goodling do next to avoid telling the truth ???

if these lame fucks put half as much imagination into their military planning they probaly wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with

but then again, probably not …

Re why Goodling might stay for five years – not entirely sure about this but I think you have superior reemployment rights with the federal government once you have reached the five year mark.

what will the good christian lawyer goodling do next to avoid telling the truth ???

I know the play, but here’s a news flash for Monica: there’s no way to get that nail the second hand down without help.

I believe that one is eligible for medical care for life after five years.

I’m curious about something. I’m a Minnesotan and I’ve seen a couple of news stories about this, some say 4 demoted themselves, some say 3. The linked article mentions a fourth; â€Tim Anderson, a non-attorney who had been the acting administrator in the office†while others haven’t brought this up.

I also like the fact that the DOJ sent someone in to stop the hemorrhaging and they did it anyway. This is gonna get worse before it gets better.

My guess is that someone told Mistress Goodling that she’d need a legal defense fund to keep paying her bills, and that her current employ was incompatible with such. I don’t think that exempts her from paying out of pocket for any fees she’s clocked up while officially at the DOJ.

But expect wingnut legal welfare to kick in the moment she’s off the payroll. And I think that’s a worthy topic of oversight. Because like Marcy, I’m yet to be convinced that Goodling is a mere functionary here. You can get a lot of power in your early 30s if you’re a loyal Bushie.

On the wider picture, it’s only a matter of time before a dirty DOJ seizes up. There’s a shadow over ever US Attorney’s office right now, and every judge and defence lawyer knows it.

No small irony here, that the aide to the man who signed the legal memo justifying torture is now relying on the constitution’s prohibition against compelled self-incrimination.

Bet those folks at Gitmo would like a little Fifth Amendment now again.

Brings to mind dueling bumper stickers from years back: â€A conservative is a liberal who got mugged†and â€A civil libertarian is a convervative who got arrested.â€

â€Four top administrators in the MN USA self-demote so as to avoid USA Rachel Paulose’s dictatorial waysâ€

Over the years, I have seen that people have very different levels of tolerance for abuse in interpersonal relationships.

Yet after about a month or similar very short time, four high ranking members of a US Attorney’s management team simultaneously self demote themselves and the cause is attributed to ’dictatorial ways.’

I’m not buying that. Its too quick. Its too orchestrated. Its a smokescreen.

She must have done something that four senior people found to be so abhorrent that they bailed out. Those four didn’t want to be associated with that decision in any way. Paulose in some way changed policy and/or perhaps instructed these staffers not to continue to pursue cases that were ’politically incorrect.’

Sad, but any action taken by the DOJ from now on is (in my opinion) subject to the presumption of guilt until demonstrated to be innocent and impartial.

This is what happens when you place political hacks, even well educated political hacks, in skill positions.

Defense attorneys should be boning up on the ’political witch hunt defense’, since most of the citizenry will be viewing any case brought by the government as suspect from the git go. No wonder Scooter wants a new trial.

I agree with Pseudonymous that the resignation was triggered by the mounting financial liability raised by her defense. Goodling may well be the ’smoking gun’ in this case, and if she is, the thugs will throw everything they have to defend her. It’s going to be a hard defense, because Leahy has the goods on her.

I’m perpetually fascinated with how so often a criminal ends up with the very attorney who fits like a pre-bloodied Caberetta glove.

By now it should be apparent that Dowd’s schtick is Cromagnon Moderne. If you want an unobstructed view of him at his ruthless worst, go into the Way Back Machine and set the dial to the 1980s when MLB Commish and former Ivy League don of letters Bart Giamatti [Father of the actor; friend of the Show] was retaining too much gas from boorish arrogance of part-time punter Pete Rose [Genotype to a certain Commander In Chief who shall go unnamed]. I particularly commend the well-considered treatment of Dowd’s â€investigative techniques†Baseball Bill James gave him on his â€investigation†into the betting career of the equally boorish Pete Rose [Don’t gag – at his best, James is as good a writer & observer on the human condition as we have.]*

None of what’s happened has changed my bet on Dowd’s campaign for Ms. Goodling, but I readily admit we have a much more fleshy read on who she is – and, I think, why was so important she got lawyered WAY up so early.

They know they absolutely have to keep this prime cut of Rove Youth as far away from a microphone, or a reporter, or a stenographer, as possible. For this is no shrinking Monica before us – this is Luca Brasi in a poodle skirt, Scarface in stretch Capris.

I think we can agree it appears unlikely that classical literature and the subtlties of composition are high among her peculiar strengths. Nor does it appear that she received more than a decorative veneer of moral depth from her foray into the halls of academe at … Regent U. [Did I just put â€academe†& â€Regent U.†in the same sentence? Whoa.]

That suggests to me that she may be, shall we say, less than entirely compelling – or at all adept – as a witness under oath. I’m thinking her best work may be with brass knuckles. For Monica is – muscle.

Okay, I exaggerate for effect. But I really don’t think this is far from the mark. Josh Marshall has a little ’tube treatment up at TPM, which, if he’s actually caught the Woodpecker on Steroids on digital, serves to reinforce the dispatches from the DoJ front lines of her as â€buzz sawâ€.

Mind you now: â€buzz sawâ€. Not scalpel. Not ANY surgically precise instrument or clever tool adapted to use in close quarters. Not even â€skill sawâ€. Wood chipper? Maybe. Certainly trending more towards the sledge hammer or others in the family of blunt instruments.

Got to hand to Dowd & his confederates. How creative of them to dress her up like she’s been kidnapped from a cotillion?

And oooh, the stories she can tell! Albeit, monosyllabically.

But she won’t. Not for some time. Maybe even never.

Were I among the staffers investigating for one of the Congressional committees which hold an interest in her, I would no more worry about her going invoking omerta …er, the Fifth, than I would about her going up river for a stretch. I know I’d feel a whole lot better about the nation’s fate once Monica takes on some tatoos and gives the uninitiated a better chance of seeing her coming.

*Given the season, I’ll hoy me to the attic & root thru my complete collection of Baseball Analysts to find the particular edition. Damned if I know whether any of Bill’s masterpieces from that era were transcribed from cellulose to electrode. Ach, it gives me an excuse to email the Sox: â€Yankees Suck!†Sorry; must have channelled some Gilliard.

PIN writes:

â€Because like Marcy, I’m yet to be convinced that Goodling is a mere functionary here.â€

I agree and disagree. I agree Goodling wielded power. But she acted on behalf of others.

More importantly, fromm the political point of view, the public will never see her as an independent actor. The public never heard of her. Hell, the vast majority of the public has STILL never heard of her.

In my view, our goals should be steadfastly political, and the possibility of criminal prosecution should be jettisoned quickly and without regret — or even a second thought.PIN writes:

I sort of disagree that â€our goals should be steadfastly political†will be met following PIN’s path. These are idealogogues who view the investigating Congressmen as evil incarnate. Negotiating, even offering immunity, doesn’t turn them into people driven to tell all [or all of the truth]. I suspect that such negotiations will run into the same endless obstructionism that the Plamegate investigation encountered. Fitzgerald got Miller and Rove talking by using the steady threat of jail and indictment. I agree that displays of rhetoric are a waste of time. It is the essence of Rovianism to ignore such things. But I don’t agree that giving them anything up front gets us anywhere. I favor the Monopoly Method [go directly to jail] as the way to obtain some version of true testimony. I vote for â€our goals should be steadfastly political†by holding on to â€the possibility of criminal prosecution†until Monica’s cards are on the table and we know what we’re going to get. If she wants to be a martyr, it’s her call…

Mickey,

I agree with much of what you say, but not the conclusion.

I agree that negotiating is a waste of time. For the same reason, I think trying to coerce her into talking with threats is a waste of time.

The beauty of giving immunity is that there is no need to negotiate. Simply give blanket immunity, and she has to talk.

Either that, or she has publicly committed the crime of contempt of Congress, and she goes straight to jail.

(So long as DOJ enforces the contempt — that is where Sara’s fear of the showdown on unitary government comes in, I think. The only out then is for gwb to declare everything Congress has done to be invalid. But that is high stakes for a president with approval in the 20s. It would probably bring impeachment to his door, finally.)

JWP:

I think the only thing completely in Congress’ control vis a vis Goodling is whether to give her immunity or not, and I agree with you that when that card is played, she faces jail time for staying quiet or for lying even with a grant of immunity.

Right now, what we have is an AG who cannot tell an accurate story about the AG firings, sneaky behavior to get the AG appointment language into the Patriot Act, and Goodling (via Fifth Amendment) and Rove and Meirs (via exec privilege) looking like they have something to hide.

This narrative of a sneaky and deceptive administration, that is now working to prevent the truth from coming out, dovetails with the other known narratives about the Bushies regarding the war and Abramoff.

For Bush, leaving AG in place means the bleeding continues, while replacing AG means that Bush has to risk not having a loyalist at the head of DOJ.

If we assume that Rove is a political self-maximizing decision maker, it would appear that he believes that continuing to appear sneaky, deceptive, and resistent to the truth being told is a better alternative than letting the facts come out (indicating that we are appropriate to be concerned that his goal is to give political operatives subpoena and prosecution power through the DOJ).

The interests of Rove and Bush differ from those of Republicans up for election in 2008, and letting this matter fester a while longer could shift power away from Bush as those Republicans analyze their own interests.

I am sure that Democrats collectively, congressional Republicans collectively, and each Senator and Member individually, is running an extensive calculus of the different ways that a Constitutional confrontation with Bush plays out.

There will be a resolution at some point. For his part, I suspect that Rove would like to push for confrontation quickly, perhaps over this matter rather than the war, and then use the confrontation to try to get traction on a new set of talking points about Democratic over-reach.

The unknown variable is when a Bushie will break ranks and start eroding the Bush team from inside. The threat of jail time could be conducive to hatening that moment.

In political terms, as I’ve said here before, I have to wonder whether the strategy of having Dowd represent Goodling is designed to test out the defence for higher-ups.

Therefore, obtaining her testimony is both valuable for its potential content, and for proving the point that the Brave-Sir-Robin act (invoking poor, persecuted Scooter) ain’t gonna work.

I’d also concur with Knut because while the principals tend not to leave their fingerprints on the machinery of government (or the private machinery of gwb43.com), the liasons and CoSes aren’t as discreet.

On jwp’s point: it’s a case of second-guessing what the White House and Gonzo want. Is it the free pass for Goodling of immunity (in which case she falls on the prop sword), or a fight over testimony where they get to establish the precedent of screwing over Congressional oversight? I’m yet to be convinced that immunity provides adequate benefits to indict (in the court of political and public opinion) Goodling’s superiors.

The Libby case proved that you could prosecute the second tier, but not touch their bosses in the courts. My guess is that Fitzgerald had a coin-toss choice over Rove, and a 25:75 over Cheney, but that he knew issues of classification and privilege would screw over any prosecution. In short, going after the bosses is for the politicians, not the prosecutors. Especially in circumstances when the very mechanism of prosecution is compromised.

In short: if you grant immunity to Goodling, you have to have the political will to impeach Gonzales. If you strike the king, you must kill him.

QS

Rawstory seemed to get it form a TV discussion. I haven’t seen the PDF of the letter.

P I N

I think the non-indictments of Rove and Cheney are somewhat unrelated. Libby, if he were to flip, might produce both (but that isn’t going to happen). I think the Rove case is just weaker, dependent on people like ARi and (if he were to flip) Libby and Armitage.

With Cheney, OTOH, Fitz faced two problems: The constitutional qusetion of insta-declassification as it relates to IIPS, and the question of whether you can indict a VP for something he does in office (Spiro got indicted for stuff he did before entering office). Add those onto the circumstantial, but strong, case, I thikn you can’t indict the VPotus.

political in terms of bringing out the truth and protecting our institutions

v

seeking criminal indictments

P I N

Then we are in agreement.

But we may yet find our John Dean.

First all this convulsing over Monica’s style of speech in her resignation just gives more an insight into the convulsers mind than any enlightment about Monica’s.

Second, I have heard similar projections and carrying on about what she might have had the USAs do to get their jobs. ~~ sign loyality oaths in blood under the great Elm tree, on Haloween night, dastardly criminal and evil oaths to do bad~~~~. And now the public has a great need to know, and justice is not served by her silence! Oh, my gosh.
Heck don’t these people know that these USAs are fairly good lawyers and know how to talk and protect themselves. Heck they could even â€leak†if they thought themselves the victim of Satanic plotting or some such.

â€Much ado about nothing.â€

Of course when she does deign to speak it will be something like.

Well I can’t say for certain, but maybe it was like this. On that I’m not so sure of my uncertainity.
Well I can only quote my own notes from that period which you already have.
No I’m not evading the question. I am just making sure that I am not contradicting anyone else who might remember better than I those days and events.

The Libby lesson is in everyone’s mind.

The great Fitzgerald lesson.

â€Never be certain.â€

… and finally where did the bunny in the hat go?

TPM is reporting that the Senate Judiciary committee is going to be looking at the Minnesota USA thing. We will find out (at least part of) what happened.

What’s the going price for popcorn kernels in 55-gallon drums?

How come nobody’s pointing out the BEST reason to be pissed off about not having the best-qualified people for job working at the DOJ? More bad guys will get away!

My guess is that someone told Mistress Goodling that she’d need a legal defense fund to keep paying her bills, and that her current employ was incompatible with such. I don’t think that exempts her from paying out of pocket for any fees she’s clocked up while officially at the DOJ.

But expect wingnut legal welfare to kick in the moment she’s off the payroll.

Is anyone going to keep track of which legal fees were incurred for work before she resigned (and, at least when she was employed couldn’t be paid by someone else) and which after? Or after she’s resigned, is it all moot, and someone else can pay those bills, regardless of when they were accrued? ’Cause if that’s the case, that’s a mighty strong reason to resign.