During the Thursday afternoon session (5/23/07) of the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) hearing on the US Attorneys' firing, Monica Goodling made a particularly interesting comment.
Of course there are so many points of interest in Goodling's testimony, but what I perceive to be one small "slip" may have gone unnoticed.
My curiosity was tweaked during Representative Robert Wexler’s (D - FL) portion. There was an exchange of questions and answers regarding the March 5th meeting called by the WH Counsel’s office. I think the attention was on the fact that Karl Rove was in attendance.
Using CSPAN's recorded version of the afternoon session you can see that at about the 9 minute, 30 second mark Wexler asked;
Wexler: "Was there any discussion about the termination of the prosecutors?"
Goodling: "Um, I remember at one point there was a reference to when, um, to when Tim Griffen's, ah, name was submitted to the President for approval and I, and I checked my book and said it was June. I think that was the only comment I made in the meeting... and I think that the only reference to a specific individual I remember in the meeting. ..."
What is of interest to me is Monica's admission of keeping a "book" which tracked the date/s when a name was submitted to the President. What is also interesting is the ease in which she recalled / stated this fact of checking her "book" with no ambiguity.
This single comment raises many questions:
Did she mean to speak about a book that tracked the dates "names were submitted to the President for approval?"
Exactly how did she know when a name was submitted TO THE PRESIDENT? By what method did she come by these facts: email, verbally, during a meeting. And by whom did she get notified? Seems ironic that she's in a meeting with WH Counsel and she is the one correcting the dates!!!???? Curious, no?
In what document dump can we find this "book"?
Did she previously disclose the existence of such a "book" to the HJC?
Where is this book today?
Does the HJC have possession?
If the book is under DOJ "control" did the DOJ disclose the fact that they have it and it's relevance to Congress' request for ALL relevant documents.
What other information related to this investigation is in the book?
Is there anything significant here or is this already known? It’s hard to keep track.
Go take a look and listen for yourself at C-SPAN's web site. Under RECENT PROGRAMS you'll see:
House Judiciary Full Cmte. Hearing on the U.S. Attorneys Investigation - PM Session <javascript:playClip(clip07)>