Ex-Gonzales aide says she may have ‘crossed the line’

After three months of congressional hearings into the firing of U.S. attorneys, one thing became clear Wednesday: Partisan politics did play a role in Justice Department personnel decisions.

But lawmakers, who have heard from an array of young political functionaries to the U.S. attorney general himself, still do not know the extent of it.

The parade of Justice Department officials wrapped up Wednesday with the testimony of Monica M. Goodling, 33, a graduate of an evangelical Christian law school whose meteoric rise to the top of the Bush Justice Department crashed and burned this spring when she resigned and hired a lawyer.

She was senior counsel to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and was his liaison to the White House.

After weeks of wrangling about the ground rules for her appearance, Goodling -- testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution -- acknowledged that she had taken into account the political leanings of applicants for jobs at the Justice Department, including career prosecutors and immigration judges. That may have violated federal civil service laws, and Goodling conceded she may have “crossed the line.”

The admission, before a packed House Judiciary Committee hearing, was the strongest evidence yet of Bush administration wrongdoing turned up by congressional investigators. For Democrats, it confirmed suspicions about the depths of politicization at the Justice Department under Gonzales.

But still fiercely disputed is the core question of whether officials were systematically assessing U.S. attorneys’ fidelity to administration political goals and easing out those found wanting, as Democrats and some of the fired attorneys suspect.

The hearings have failed to produce support for Democrats’ most provocative theories: that the firings were driven by a desire to find U.S. attorneys who would pursue legal action -- in voting fraud or public corruption matters -- in ways that would help Republican candidates.

Now, with Goodling and other Justice officials denying they knew of any such motives, Democrats are turning to the White House for answers. That path could be highly problematic.

The administration has declined to provide unfettered access to the likes of political operative Karl Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers. Lawmakers are threatening to issue subpoenas for documents and testimony. The matter could be headed for court.

Democrats on Wednesday expressed indignation and frustration at the state of affairs.

“The only way we can get to the full truth is if Mr. Karl Rove is sitting in the very same seat that you’re sitting in,” Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) told Goodling. “And he needs to be here. And he needs to be here posthaste.”

While portraying herself as a department loyalist who considered her colleagues part of an extended family, Goodling also lobbed new and explosive charges against Gonzales and Paul J. McNulty, the outgoing deputy attorney general.

Goodling recounted one conversation she had with Gonzales during her final days at the department that suggested the attorney general may have attempted to coordinate with her his version of the events leading up to the firing of the eight prosecutors.

Goodling said Gonzales reviewed the story of the firings with her in March at a meeting she requested in his office to discuss her future.

She said she was “paralyzed” and “distraught” by the swirling controversy and asked Gonzales for a transfer. The attorney general said he would consider the request.

“He then proceeded to say, ‘Let me tell you what I can remember,’ and he laid out for me his general recollection ... of some of the process regarding the replacement of the U.S. attorneys,” Goodling said. “He laid out a little bit of it, and then he asked me ... if I had any reaction to his iteration.”

“It made me a little uncomfortable,” Goodling continued.

Democrats seized on the exchange, questioning whether Gonzales was attempting to coordinate stories with his former aide and possibly even to obstruct justice.

Gonzales has told lawmakers that he had not discussed the dismissals with others involved at the department for fear that it might compromise the integrity of the investigation.

“Do you think, Ms. Goodling, the attorney general was trying to shape your recollection?” asked Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.).

Goodling said no but that the encounter left her speechless. “I just did not know if it was a conversation that we should be having, and so I just ... didn’t say anything,” she said.

Senate Democrats offered a harsher assessment. “At the very least, the attorney general may have misled the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a leading Gonzales critic, said in a statement issued after the House hearing. “At worst, he may have tried to influence Ms. Goodling’s testimony.”

Goodling also alleged that McNulty, who has testified that he was largely in the dark about the events leading up to the firings, was “not fully candid” with lawmakers and gave testimony to Congress that was “incomplete or inaccurate.”

McNulty told a Senate panel Feb. 6 that the decision to fire the U.S. attorneys in December was made solely by the Justice Department when, in fact, the White House had also weighed in.

McNulty has said Goodling and other aides failed to sufficiently brief him on the firings in advance of his testimony. Goodling said the allegation was false.

The Justice Department produced quick denials on behalf of Gonzales and McNulty, saying that neither had acted inappropriately.

“The attorney general has never attempted to influence or shape the testimony or public statements of any witness in this matter, including Ms. Goodling,” said spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. “The statements made by the attorney general at this meeting were intended only to comfort her in a very difficult period of her life, as Monica described today when she said he was being kind.”

McNulty said he testified truthfully “based on what I knew at that time,” and that “Ms. Goodling’s characterization of my testimony is wrong and not supported by the extensive record of documents and testimony already provided to Congress.”

Goodling also acknowledged that the Justice Department last fall interviewed U.S. attorney candidates for Los Angeles who had not yet gone through the state’s bipartisan selection process.

Goodling said the department considered a state commission that has screened candidates since 2001 “rather slow” and believed it did not include all candidates that were deserving.

The Times reported Wednesday that the department interviews, in which Goodling participated, were reined in after the head of the state selection commission, Los Angeles investment banker Gerald L. Parsky, protested to the White House.

Concerns were raised that officials were trying to install a politically connected successor to outgoing U.S. Atty. Debra Wong Yang.

Earlier Wednesday, Goodling -- who did opposition research for the Republican National Committee before joining the Justice Department -- acknowledged that she had gone overboard in considering the political backgrounds of candidates for jobs as career prosecutors. She also said she occasionally scanned Federal Election Commission websites to check out applicants’ political contributions.

“You crossed the line on civil service laws, is that right?” asked Rep. Robert C. Scott (D-Va.).

“I believe I crossed the line,” Goodling replied. “But I didn’t mean to.”

She said she could not recall the number of cases in which she allowed politics to affect her judgment.

She downplayed her involvement in the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys, saying that she acted more as a traffic cop, forwarding assessments and other information to higher-ups at the Justice Department and White House.

She offered investigators few leads on connecting the scandal to the White House. She said she never discussed the firings with Rove or Miers, although she acknowledged attending a meeting with Rove after the scandal broke and exchanging e-mail with Miers.

House leaders said the testimony was significant, and they vowed to stay on the trail.

“It’s imperative that we begin to obtain more cooperation from the White House,” House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said after the hearing. “We’ve learned today that trust has been violated, that false statements have been made under oath -- not Monica Goodling -- and that there was a possible obstruction of justice as well as perjury.

“This is known as the bread crumb theory of investigation,” he added. “We keep getting closer and closer to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”

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rick.schmitt@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Key players

Paul J. McNulty

Deputy attorney general, No. 2 person at the Justice Department.

* Testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 6.

* Downplayed his role and that of the White House in the firings. Later, he reportedly told a lawmaker he “had not been entirely candid” in his testimony.

* Announced his resignation May 14.

D. Kyle Sampson

Chief of staff, the attorney general’s top aide, who compiled the list of prosecutors to be fired.

* Testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 29.

* Told the panel that despite Gonzales’ earlier denials, the attorney general was deeply involved in discussions that led to the firing of the eight U.S. attorneys.

* Resigned March 12.

James B. Comey

Deputy attorney general under former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.

* Testified twice, before the House and Senate Judiciary committees, May 3 and May 15.

* Said most of the fired U.S. attorneys were among the finest. He recalled that Gonzales, when he was White House counsel in 2004, went to Ashcroft’s hospital bedside to get him to sign off on a disputed national security order that Comey had opposed as acting attorney general.

* Left the Justice Department in 2005 after Gonzales was appointed.

Monica M. Goodling

Justice Department’s White House liaison, worked with Sampson on personnel matters.

* Testified Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee after receiving immunity from prosecution.

* Acknowledged that she considered political loyalty to the GOP when evaluating Justice Department employees, a possible violation of civil service and other laws.

* Resigned April 6.

Alberto R. Gonzales

U.S. attorney general, the nation’s top law enforcement official.

* Testified twice, before the Senate and House Judiciary committees, April 19 and May 10.

* Acknowledged that the firing of eight U.S. attorneys could have been handled better but defended the dismissals as appropriate and based on performance, not politics.

* Despite calls for his resignation from Democrats and even some Republicans, he remains as attorney general and has President Bush’s support.