has any DOJ top official ever taken the the 5th before? ever?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

I've been searching archives, the tubes, and other resources I've gathered over the decades, and never, ever, have I seen a top official of the Department of JUSTICE taking the 5th.

I do declare. Golly Gee. She just did the impossible.
Ms. Goodling has managed to envigorate the masses in a way I never expected. Every citizen understands the 5th. Every American knows that you use that when you are about to step in deep doodoo. Every person on the street recognizes that its use by a government official before a congressional committee investigating DOJ wrongdoing is pretty damned telling.

I see three possibilities.

i. Goodling, even more than Fredo, knows where all the corpses are buried and she won't talk without immunity.
ii. she is getting bad advice from naive lawyers.
ii. she knows precisely what she is doing, embarrassing the Admin Cabal and the DOJ because she knows just how bad it is.

[Kagemusha]

1. I think she's embraced Snow's position: Congress = no oversight

So if Congress has no legitimate oversight, there's no reason to testify, is there?

It's just more brazen this way.

[lazer47]

2. It is a smart move to get Immunity

then she can blow the lid off, Leahy can give her immunity even though she might not want it, and then she cannot refuse to testify

[Kagemusha]

4. Or what? They'll charge her with contempt of Congress?

Then it's back to square 1 and she doesn't have to say a word.

[lazer47]

5. Believe me she dosen't want to go to jail

these chicken-shit repugs have no alternative but to fess-up

[fasttense]

3. The fifth Amendment reads:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

This is what applies to the DOJ: "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,"

So what CNN was quoting from her attorney's letter is pure BS. Nowhere does the 5th Amendment say a witness can not be compelled to testify because she/he thinks Congress/or a court is being too political. Political environments and fairness in that environment is not addressed in the fifth. The fifth merely protects that silly DOJ woman from being a witness against herself. So she must have committed a crime or thinks she committed a crime if she takes the fifth.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. you mean - we still have a constitution?

I would have never suspected.

[radfringe]

7. we do - however

major portions have been redacted, and framed for loyal bushie use only

for instance - the Bill of RightS is now the Bill of THE RIGHT

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. how aptly put.

I do believe that the Chinese curse, "May you live in exciting times" hath cometh home to roost in ye good olde US of A.

[papau]

9. And never forget the glorious GOP mantra about Dems being "Fifth Amendment Communists" n/t

n/t

[papau]

10. She is - as the GOP once loved to say - a "FIFTH AMENDMENT COMMUNIST" LOL :-)

What will our media say -

nothing

just watched a half dozen shows that all went with the current GOP line "the Congress is partisan so I don't need to speak"

not quite the wording of the fifth amendment - lacks that implication of "I'm quilty" - but that is what our media says.

The Fifth Amendment protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves. To "plead the Fifth" or to "take the Fifth" is to refuse to answer a question because the response could form incriminating evidence.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

[tnlurker]

11. Congress should still call her to testify

You can not "take the Fifth" in the media. You have to do it in the "stand" to testify. Make sure she shows up on the appointed date and time and make her say it into the microphone in front of the committee. Don't let her just declare that she is taking the fifth and not show up.