WASHINGTON – A top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales abruptly quit Friday, almost two weeks after telling Congress she would not testify about her role in the firings of federal prosecutors.
Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House, gave no reason for her resignation. Since she was at the center of the firings, Goodling’s refusal to testify has intensified questions about whether the U.S. attorney dismissals were proper and heightened the furor that threatens Gonzales’ own job.
“It has been an honor to have served at the Justice Department for the past five years,” Goodling wrote Gonzales, advising him of her resignation effective today.
“May God bless you richly as you continue your service to America,” Goodling added.
The Justice Department confirmed the resignation in a letter to two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the firings. Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty had removed themselves from any personnel decisions related to Goodling, according to the letter from Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling.
Their recusals were designed to “ensure that no actual or apparent conflict of interest would arise with respect to Ms. Goodling or related matters,” Hertling wrote.
Goodling’s resignation came less than two weeks before Gonzales’ own planned testimony to the Senate, which may determine his fate as attorney general. Several Republican lawmakers have joined Democrats in calling for his resignation or dismissal over the firings and other blunders at the Justice Department.
Justice Department documents show Goodling attended numerous meetings over a year’s time about the plans to fire the U.S. attorneys and corresponded with the White House and at least one of the ousted prosecutors before the dismissals were ordered.
She was involved in an April 6, 2006, phone call between the Justice Department and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who had complained to the Bush administration and the president about David Iglesias, then the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque. Domenici wanted Iglesias to aggressively pursue a corruption probe against Democrats before the 2006 elections.
Additionally, Goodling was among aides who on Feb. 5 helped McNulty prepare his testimony for a Senate hearing the next day – during which he may have given Congress incomplete or otherwise misleading information about the circumstances of the firings.
Last month, House and Senate panels investigating the ousters signaled they would subpoena Goodling and four other senior Justice officials to testify. But Goodling, who took an indefinite personal leave from the department, balked.
In letters responding to the congressional inquiries, her attorney, John Dowd, said testifying would amount to a perjury trap for Goodling. He likened her potential legal jeopardy in testifying during a Democratic-led investigation to that of I. Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted last month in the CIA leak case.
Dowd also accused Democrats of trying to intimidate her in a fashion reminiscent of the notorious Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Dowd declined to comment Friday except to confirm Goodling’s resignation.
But Democrats said Goodling’s resignation would not end their pursuit of her testimony.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., “remains committed to questioning Monica Goodling, especially with this new development,” said spokeswoman Melanie Roussell. “Her involvement and general knowledge of what happened makes her a valuable piece to this puzzle.”
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