Barbara Comstock (spit) was the head of the RNC's opposition research team during election 2000 and one of those horrid harridans who were deployed as Scaife-paid pundits during the Clinton years.
Then she went to work for Ashcroft, and Monica Goodling and Tim Griffin worked under her there. (Goodling was Comstock's protege at the RNC oppo shop!)
Here's the skinny, from findlaw:
"After graduating in 1999, Goodling landed a job at the D.C. headquarters of the Republican National Committee just as the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign was ramping up. Goodling's position put her inside the newly created war room for political opposition research. There, she worked alongside a crew of party faithful who would later shepherd her through the ranks at Justice.
Among Goodling's close associates were Barbara Comstock, head of opposition research for the RNC and later the chief spokeswoman for Ashcroft; Griffin, Comstock's deputy, whom Goodling would later help to win the interim appointment to replace one of the eight ousted U.S. Attorneys in Arkansas; and Mark Corallo, who in 2003 took the helm of the Justice Department's Public Affairs Office after Comstock.
Goodling quickly won Comstock's trust for her hard work and talent for digging up information on tort litigation and judicial nominations. And when Griffin left in 2001, Goodling became Comstock's deputy. They helped prepare Ashcroft and Theodore Olson for their confirmation hearings to be attorney general and solicitor general, respectively."
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1175245444489