http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/27/mueller-goodlingFBI Director Suggests Goodling’s Fifth Amendment Decision UnprecedentedFBI Director Robert Mueller testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the FBI’s improper use of National Security Letters. At one point, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked Mueller about the decision by Monica Goodling, counsel to Alberto Gonzales, to invoke her Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination.
Mueller said that while he has not been “focused on thinking back to circumstances where it may have happened in the past,” he could not ever remember a time when a Justice Department official had taken the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying.
Watch it:
As the Justice Department’s White House liaison, Goodling’s appears to be “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.” As the New York Times wrote today, her refusal to testify takes the scandal to a “new level” and compounds need for Mr. Gonzales to testify “without delay in full public view.”