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U.S. Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and Ric Keller, R-Florida, both extensively questioned Monica Goodling, the former Justice Department official, about former U.S. Attorney Carol Lam and the reasons for her dismissal.
The New York Times provides a full transcript of the testimony yesterday.
Keller: Did anyone at DOJ ever say to you or did you hear or read a(n) e-mail that she should be fired for prosecuting Duke Cunningham or any other Republican-related official?
Goodling: No, I don’t remember anything like that.
Keller: Did you ever have any communications with anyone at the White House when they suggested that Carol Lam should be fired for prosecuting Duke Cunningham or any other Republican official?
Goodling: No, I don’t remember anything like that. …
Keller: I’m still seeing crap that we saw in the L.A. Times this week saying that our attorney general is a criminal because he let Ms. Lam go because she prosecuted Duke Cunningham.
Issa focused on Lam’s prosecutorial record, which included her personally taking up a case against Tenet Healthcare.
Issa: Now Carol Lam, among other things, also chose to prosecute — not once, but twice — her own cases, spending weeks in front of jury trials. Isn’t that a little unusual, a little bit of grandstanding, when you’re talking about somebody who has to oversee so many other assistant U.S. attorneys?
Goodling: It was fairly unusual, in extra-large offices where you had hundreds of staff members to supervise, for a U.S. attorney to do so much trial work.
Issa: So isn’t that also a factor in the firing of Carol Lam?
Goodling: It was something I heard discussed, yes.