The Daily Background

You can watch the hearings live on either C-SPAN 3 C-SPAN Radio, or the Judiciary Committee website. The most recent updates are at the bottom of this thread. Also, the Washington Post has a video stream on their website.

10:42 House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) just served Goodling with the subpoena and a clerk is bringing it to her after she tried to plead the Fifth. She now has use immunity.

10:46 Reading her statement now. Says she didn’t withhold info from former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty as he claims, and admits his previous testimony was totally inaccurate… also says she believes he was misleading purposefully.

10:47 My god, turns out her voice is hella obnoxious.

10:48 Says she never talked with Rove or Miers about the US Attorney purge, nor does she hold the “keys to the kingdom” with this matter.

10:50 No political hiring or firing at the good old DoJ. Nooooo sir. Cause that’d just be wrong, right Monica?

10:51 “acknowledges” that she may have gone too far in asking hiring questions sometimes

10:52 “The person that i read about on the internet and in the newspapers is not me.” Oh God, now she’s explaining why she went to a Christian school. Wtf?

10:55 Conyers pronounced “Iglesias” right. Everyone is stunned.

10:55 Nobody in the entire world knows why Iglesias was put on the list of prosecutors to be fired.

10:56 First “I don’t remember” from Goodling.

10:59 She’s saying she doesn’t know much about anything so far and heaping a lot of responsibility/blame on Gonzales or, as Conyers puts it, “your boss.”

11:00 Goodling was in meeting with Rove after the scandal broke, met at White House.

11:02 “I was responsible more for after the plan was implemented than more for the plan itself.”

11:03 Goodling says that McNulty may have withheld things he knew in previous testimony, says she briefed him on things that he didn’t mention but says that she isn’t suggesting it was intentional.

11:05 Goodling says she isn’t sure that she ever knew “who in the white house” wanted Tim Griffin, a former Karl Rove aide as the US Attorney in Little Rock Arkansas.

11:08 Goodling told McNulty the day before and the night (?!) before about Tim Griffin, but in his testimony, he apparently said he knew nothing about it in testimony a day later.

11:12 This hearing seems to be going mainly on party lines… Oh my God, one Republican member is reading from an LA Times article about John Murtha. Guhhhhhhhh. HOW IS THIS RELEVANT?! Goodling hasn’t said a word during this particular Rep’s time for questions. This is outrageous.

11:16 No surprise as to why Goodling used political questions were asking in the hiring process… her previous experience making personnel decisions (hiring and firing) was at the Republican National Committee.

11:17 OH Sanchez asks about this blocking of hirings for political reasons (them being liberal). Goodling says she regrets trying to block and resulting in delaying hirings of liberals or Democrats.

11:24 Former House Juciciary Committee Chair Jim Sensenbrenner brags that for the last 6 years, he didn’t serve a single subpoena while Republicans were in the majority.

11:34 Goodling says “I don’t believe that I intended to comit a crime” in considering political considerations into account when she did so in hiring people… “I know I crossed the line.”

11:41 Goodling says that at the time of the firing, the DoJ didn’t want to make departures “more painful for people” (US Attorneys) by telling them what they were doing wrong.

11:49 Goodling admits that she reccomended somebody get off the US Attorney purge list after previously saying she didn’t make any reccomendations, but now says she meant only making reccomendations to the White House previously.

11:58 There’s a person on the Committee called Zoe Lofgren? Also, Lofgren asked if Goodling has asked people who they voted for and she said yes. But only “political appointees.” Well no apparently she can’t be sure that she didn’t ask them of other people too.

12:04 Recess until 12:10.

(Annnnd we’re back.)

12:21 “A not good situation”– the words Goodling uses to describe the US Attorney purge scandal.

12:30 Goodling says she used oppo research skills she learned at the RNC while she was working for the DoJ and doing personnel hirings. Goodling says she may have discussed research with people in Rove’s office for political appointees.

12:42 Darryl Issa (R-CA) wants everyone to know that he hates Carol Lam.

12:43 Goodling gives Issa a “Katherine Harris” smile:

Clever readers will recognize Dana Milbank of the Washington Post giving that weird look on her face behind her.

1PM the room will be cleared now, for a one hour recesss, with everyone back and lunch taken care of by 2PM EST. I’m not going to do any more liveblogging on this right now, because it doesn’t seem as though there really isn’t that much more interesting stuff going on.

RSS readers should check the website for this live blogging thread. Keep refreshing for updates.

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