Journamalism!!!!

David Stout and Jim Rutenberg go 110% into the tank for the Bushies!

Justice Official Won't Testify on Prosecutor Firings - New York Times: A lawyer for a Justice Department official involved in the controversial firings of eight United States attorneys said today that his client would not testify on Capitol Hill because she is convinced she would not be treated fairly.

The official, Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, is invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and so will decline to answer "any and all questions regarding the firings," her lawyer, John M. Dowd, said. But Ms. Goodling's refusal does not signal that she has anything to hide, Mr. Dowd told the Senate Judiciary Committee's chairman, Senator Patrick J. Leahy...

Has there ever been a more false lead in any newspaper?

Monica Goodling is not refusing to testify on the grounds that she believes that the committee will not treat her fairly.

Monica Goodling is refusing to testify on the grounds that testifying may incriminate her.

There is a difference.

Bill Keller doesn't have much of a reputation right now. But the fact that he has not yet fired Rutenberg and Stout is doing him no good at all.

Comments

[D. W. Griffiths]

The lead appears to be true, in that it reports what someone said.

Oftentimes journalists need to keep pushing to find what's really going on behind the public comments. But a lot of the time there is a value in simply recording what someone said, either directly or through their lawyer.

Sometimes the value is that later you can compare what they said at one time with what they said at another. Sometime the value is that the people who write newspaper opinion pieces and blog comments can go to town pointing out that when someone says such-and-such, it must imply something else.

Much of the time, a journalist adds maximum value by recording the facts. Opinions can be generated by anyone, and these days are usually in surplus. Facts are often in short supply.

That said, context is useful. How unusual is this conduct in the circumstances? How often do people refuse to testify? Who has previously refused to testify because they felt they would be treated unfairly? Has this committee done anything different from other committees at other times?

[DILBERT DOGBERT]

Ah! D.W. "Birth of a Nation"
Wheee

[Don Pedro]

When Would Jesus Testify?

A quick googling reveals that Monica is a law school graduate of Regent U. "America's preeminent Christian university."

[Joe S.]

Speaking as a licensed shyster, I can assure Brad that he is onto something.

"Monica Goodling is not refusing to testify on the grounds that she believes that the committee will not treat her fairly.
Monica Goodling is refusing to testify on the grounds that testifying may incriminate her."

Neither reason for asserting the Fifth Amendment is a valid one, and the second reason is less valid than the first. If Congress had any stones, they would clap her into the Capitol calaboose for asserting this tripe. She could then petition for habeas relief. The court would hear her claim, and deny it. She would then have to retreat to her real claim: that her testimony might lead to the conclusion that she was participating in obstruction of justice. The court would, I think, grant the claim. But the assertion would be politically deadly.

[Barbara]

Without quite endorsing the article, I think that the way and the context in which she asserted the privilege have been accurately captured. Her lawyer stated something to the effect that she was afraid of being trapped and that Congress had already made up its mind and blah blah blah, none of which adds up to requiring incriminating testimony. So her invocation isn't really the usual assertion of the privilege, rather it looks more like a preemptive strike to try to avoid having to testify, hanging on to this handy rule and blaming Congress for making her have to do it this way. Moreover, it looks as if all of this has been carefully orchestrated. The fact that she took an indefinite leave of absence prefigured the 5th amendment invocation: there is almost no way a current employee of DOJ could assert that privilege against Congress and stay on the job. It would be like me declining to tell my employer the details of a major screw up on the grounds that he might not think well of me. Of course I would be fired.

Anyway, Brad is giving way too much credit to Goodling and company.

[Yawn]

Joe S.:
Is what you are saying that a general "might incriminate me" is not enough, and something about what it might incriminate me OF is required? As a civilian, I was not aware of that, or that her claim of 5th amendment protection as presented is not valid. Thanks for the information.

D.W.:
Brad is saying that, while the lede is factually true, putting it first gives, to the many people who don't read past the first paragraph, the false impression that Goodling is worried about fairness, rather than criminality.

All of which is probably just a way to get her immunity from prosecution, anyway. Which is practically an admission of illegality.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/opinion/27tue1.html

March 27, 2007

Time for Answers

The news that Monica Goodling, counsel to the attorney general and liaison to the White House, is invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination takes the United States attorney scandal to a new level. Ms. Goodling's decision comes just days after the Justice Department released documents strongly suggesting that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has not been honest about his own role in the firing of eight federal prosecutors. Mr. Gonzales is scheduled to testify before the Senate in three weeks, but that is too long to wait. He should speak now, and explain why he continues to insist that his department did nothing wrong.

As the liaison between the White House and the Justice Department, Ms. Goodling seems to have been squarely in the middle of what appears to have been improper directions from the White House to politicize the hiring and firing of United States attorneys. Mr. Gonzales has insisted the eight prosecutors were let go for poor performance, and that the dismissals are an "overblown personnel matter." But Ms. Goodling's decision to exercise her Fifth Amendment rights suggests that she, at least, believes crimes may have been committed.

Last Friday night, the Justice Department released a calendar entry that directly contradicts Mr. Gonzales's insistence that he was out of the loop. It shows that he attended an hourlong meeting on Nov. 27 to discuss the upcoming firings of seven of the prosecutors. Previously, he had insisted that he never "had a discussion about where things stood."

The release of the calendar entry is disturbing because it suggests not only that Mr. Gonzales may have personally approved the firings — something he has denied — but that the Justice Department has been dishonest in its responses to Congress. The department had already released what it claimed was a full set of relevant documents, and it now says it simply overlooked the ones released on Friday. But the information about the Nov. 27 meeting may have been released because Mr. Gonzales's chief of staff, who was present at it, has agreed to testify before Congress this week.

The more information that comes out, the more disturbing the firings look....

[Joe S.]

Yawn,
A general "might incriminate me" is enough, when it is obvious how the testimony could be incriminatory. "Did you, Jane Doe, fire the gun while it was pointed at the decedent?" When it is not obvious, some explanation is in order. Where the explanation is inadequate, the witness must answer. This sometimes gets very touchy, as when an explanation would itself be incriminatory. But there are ways around this.

[anne]

Brad DeLong is a superb reader, not quite Richard Niebuhr, but superb. However, the New York Times will often print a quickly written and edited article on the Internet that is then carefully re-written and edited, even by different writers and editors as time allows. The article in question was re-written and edited by a senior team and is fine now.

Proper reporting takes time and writing and re-writing and re-editing.

[Dick (no, not that one)]

The 5th Amendment has nothing to do with not testifying just because the witness doesn't like the tribunal. Nor does it have anything to do with not testifying because of concern of later perjury charges based upon the testimony. If either of these were valid priveleges, very few people would testify. She can be compelled to testify unless she can demonstrate to an independant judge that there is a legitimate concern of self incrimination of a crime which has already been committed. Just trying to delay testimony until you find out what everyone says is not legitimate. If the reporter had bothered to call a lawyer to check out the press release, he could have found all this out in about 5 minutes prior to being Goodling's press agent.

[Barbara]

Second what anne says -- current version of article reverses order of these statements. However, I still believe the original article conveyed the "truth" of the matter in this sense: the basis upon which she asserts a right not to testify is the 5th amendment but the only reason given appears to be the fairness of the tribunal. Thus, it isn't clear to me that it is inappropriate to stress the former over the latter, as it makes it rather clear at least to those of us in the know that her claim is likely to be bogus. Not everyone is in the know, though, so it probably is better to lead with the discussion of the 5th.

[Tom Maguire]

One of the many great features of the Times website (for those who are not fully satisified by the once-a-week nature of the Sunday crossword, anyway) is the lack of *any* information about how a story was actually placed in the Dead Tree version.

For example, I think the story linked by the Prof is the web-only version - here is the Varsity version:

"Aide to Gonzales Won’t Testify About Dismissals
By DAVID JOHNSTON and CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, March 26 — An aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Monday invoked her constitutional right to refuse to testify before a Senate panel investigating last year’s removal of eight United States attorneys, her lawyer told the committee.

The aide, Monica Goodling, the Justice Department’s White House liaison, who helped coordinate the dismissals, asserted her Fifth Amendment protection against compelled self-incrimination in a letter that her lawyer sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In the letter, Ms. Goodling’s lawyer, John M. Dowd, questioned the fairness of the panel and cited the possibility that she might be a witness in a criminal inquiry, although there is currently no known criminal investigation into the dismissals.

A Justice Department official said that senior agency officials were “concerned” about Ms. Goodling’s refusal to testify because “we had agreed to make Department of Justice officials available to the committee.” The official said Ms. Goodling, who is on leave, had not obtained advance approval for her decision. "

The "fairness" rationale is moved to the third paragraph and concerned Justice officials appear in paragraph 4.

That said - the first story cites the Lewis Libby experience, as noted in the attorney's letter; the final version drops that.

For my money, the Time got back into the correct tank in time for the print edition. In fact, the Times search engine won't even return a link to the Stout / Rutenberg story about Goodling (unless I am completely awry here), so that story is passe.

As an aside, it has been suggested to me that Ms. Goodling is concerned about purgery.

[eddie]

Did I miss the day in Constitutional Law that explained the Fifth Amendment. Are the clear words meant to say that a witness cannot be compelled in a "criminal proceeding" to give testimony that might tend to incriminate the witness.

When did Congressional hearings become conflated with criminal proceedings?

And this person was appointed to one of the most prestigious legal positions in the country?

A pox on most of higher education for producing such "students" and a pox on all law schools that remain silent in the wake of this Orwellian destruction of our justice system from both ends.

[C. L. Ball]

Yes, Eddie, you missed that day. See Watkins v. US 354 U.S. 178.