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 News from Around the Americas | April 2007 
Gonzales Aide Gets Immunity
 Associated Press
| | House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich, left, talks with Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, on Capitol Hill in Washington April 18, 2007, during a meeting of the committee to determine if they should grant Monica Goodling immunity from fired prosecutors case. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) |
House panel investigating prosecutors' firings also approves subpoena.
A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the two-thirds majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote.
The House panel's action was one of several scheduled committee votes pertaining to subpoenas for Bush administration officials, among them Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom lawmakers want to question about the administration's now-discredited claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa - used in part to justify the war against Iraq.
But House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., postponed a vote on issuing a subpoena to former White House chief of staff Andrew Card on the same issue, saying White House Counsel Fred Fielding had made a compromise proposal worth pursuing.
Political Influence Questioned
Democrats say they want to force into the open the story of why the prosecutors were fired and whether they were singled out to influence corruption cases. Republicans point out that Gonzales survived a brutal Senate hearing last week with President Bush's support and no evidence of wrongdoing in the prosecutors firings.
Gonzales, meanwhile, was busy mending fences Wednesday. He was scheduled to return to Capitol Hill to meet with a key critic, Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who has complained that Gonzales was not truthful with him over the dismissal of Bud Cummins, the former U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark.
The Judiciary committee's vote instructs a House lawyer to seek an immunity grant for Goodling from a federal court. The grant would not take effect unless Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., chooses to issue Goodling a subpoena compelling her to testify, Conyers said.
Goodling and her lawyer have invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, saying they believe Democrats have set a perjury trap for her. Conyers said Wednesday he hopes Goodling changes her mind and voluntarily tells the committee her story.
"I do not propose this step lightly," Conyers told the panel. "If we learn something new in the course of our investigation ... we can always stop the process s before the court issues an order."
Politics of Immunity
Some Republicans cautioned that immunity has tied the hands of prosecutors in the past, notably during the Iran-Contra scandal. Admiral John Poindexter and Lt. Col. Oliver North were granted immunity and later had their convictions reversed when a judge ruled that they were based too much on immunized testimony.
"Think of the consequences to the integrity and reputation of this committee and this institution should we grant immunity and it's impossible to prosecute someone," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a former chairman of the panel.
But Sensenbrenner was one of only six lawmakers, all Republicans, to vote against the immunity grant. The others were Reps. Chris Cannon of Utah, Randy Forbes of Virginia, Steve King of Iowa, Trent Franks of Arizona and Louis Gohmert of Texas.
Rice's aides have insisted she has answered questions repeatedly before Congress and in the media about Bush's statement on uranium.
Waxman said Rice was "giving us no choice but to proceed with a subpoena."
"If we are stonewalled then we can't hesitate to call on the powers available to us," Waxman said.
Fishing Expeditions and Witchhunts
Republicans dismissed the subpoenas as political fishing expeditions by zealous majority Democrats eager to assert their newly won oversight power.
Rep. Tom Davis of Virgina, top Republican on Waxman's committee, called a Rice subpoena duplicative and evidence of a witchhunt. Though the uranium claim was false, Rice already has explained that she believed it to be true at the time.
Waxman's questions to her "have been asked and answered," Davis said.
"Subpoenaing Secretary Rice has more to do with political theater than legitimate oversight goals," said House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
The barrage of subpoenas is an example of the Democrats' newfound power and the plethora of White House business from which they have to choose after six years of a Republican majority that did virtually no executive branch oversight. |
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