Top Gonzales Aide Monica Goodling Resigns
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
The senior counselor to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales submitted her resignation today, marking the second senior Gonzales aide to quit in connection with the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
Monica M. Goodling, who has been on leave for several weeks, has invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid providing testimony or an interview to congressional investigators.
Democratic leaders complained earlier this week that Goodling's continued employment by the Justice Department posed a serious legal conflict, and made it impossible for Gonzales to follow through on promises to allow staffers to cooperate with Congress.
Goodling sent a three-sentence letter to Gonzales saying she was "hereby submitting my resignation to the office of attorney general."
Her departure follows the resignation last month of D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's former chief of staff, who went on to testify in the Senate that Gonzales was more directly involved in the prosecutor firings than he had sometimes acknowledged.
Sampson and Goodling worked closely together on the firings, particularly in the case of an Arkansas prosecutor removed to make way for a former aide to presidential advisor Karl Rove.
Both Gonzales aides also participated in briefings for Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and others prior to testimony in Congress that has since been shown to be inaccurate. Goodling and her attorneys have cited McNulty's complaints about the briefings as the reason for her refusal to testify.
