Goodling Testimony Prompts DPNM Chair Colón to Query Domenici on U.S. Attorney Firings

An article in today's Albuquerque Tribune reports on the testimony by Monica Goodling at yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on the U.S. Attorney firings. Bottom line: She doesn't remember much of anything either. Seems everyone at the Alberto Gonzales DOJ has amnesia. Amazing how not one person in the Department of Justice will take credit for putting the names on the U.S. Attorney firing list, even though the firings were, you know, just routine and based on poor job performance.

Goodling's testimony did raise more issues about Sen. Pete Domenici's involvement in the firings:

Goodling testified she did not know who put Iglesias on the list of U.S. attorneys fired Dec. 7. But she did reveal that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty covered up Domenici's involvement in a private briefing McNulty had with the Senate Judiciary Committee in January and in a public hearing Feb. 6.

"He thought the senator would prefer to address those concerns privately with his colleagues, and he wanted to give him (Domenici) the opportunity to do that," Goodling said.

At one staff meeting prior to the briefings, one official - she could not remember who - suggested to McNulty that somebody should call Domenici's chief of staff, Steve Bell, "and see if he wanted to address the concerns with his colleagues before the briefing took place."

Goodling did not say whether the call to Bell was made.

In response to Goodling's testimony, the new Chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, Brian Colón, asked Domenici and his chief of staff, Steve Bell, for some answers about their contacts with the DOJ and Rove. Click for page 1 and page 2 (pdf) of his letter to Senator Domenici. Excerpts:

This scandal has quickly spun into an indictment of the entire Department of Justice and its ability to fairly administer the nation's laws, and you stand squarely in the middle of the vortex. There is no longer any doubt that you were singularly responsible for Mr. Iglesias' firing - the only thing still in question is the manner in which you secured that firing and whether you crossed any ethical or legal lines in the process.

... The Senate Ethics Committee will weigh the legal questions surrounding your role, but in the meantime, you have a larger obligation to the people of New Mexico to finally explain your actions in detail. To that end, I request that you:

1. Detail any contacts between you and your staff, including your chief of staff Steve Bell, and Monica Goodling or other Department of Justice officials such as former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson.
2. Detail any contacts between you or your staff, including your chief of staff Steve Bell, and Karl Rove and his staff.

If there are emails between your staff and the Department of Justice or White House office of Political Affairs, you owe it to the public to release them. If your executive assistant maintains call logs, a common practice in Senate offices, please release any such call logs noting calls either from or to the Department of Justice or White House.

As reported in the Tribune article:

McNulty had told the senators that Iglesias and the other U.S. attorneys were fired for poor performance, prompting Iglesias to reveal the phone calls from Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, also a Albuquerque Republican, and leading to the subsequent admissions by Domenici that he had pressed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and McNulty to fire Iglesias.

During one meeting, Goodling said she wrote down that "Domenici says he doesn't move cases," presumably referring to Iglesias. She said she didn't remember who made the comment.

Committee member Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, asked if that "referred to the Aragon investigation." Goodling said she only knew about the Aragon case from press reports.

"Certainly, I knew that Senator Domenici had concerns with public corruption cases," said Goodling.

For information on other aspects of Goodling's testimony, see these AP and Washington Post articles.