murray waas reports on secret order giving goodling, sampson breathtaking authority at DoJ

tonight, talkleft has a link
to a incendiary murray waas
national journal story -- including
some angry commentary from senator
patrick leahy's office. . .

apparently, kyle sampson and monica
goodling were given extremely broad
authority to hire and fire at the DoJ,
pursuant to a "secret order" signed
by the attorney general, alberto gonzales.

perhaps surprisingly, it may
ultimately turn out that the
content of this order is
far less significant than
the fact that alberto
gonzales apparently will-
fully failed to
produce it, in direct
violation of the four
corners of this john conyers
subpoena duces tecum. [see image,
at right -- clickable!]

and that may all lead to a contempt of congress
charge, in very short order. astonishing.

it is uncontroverted that this "secret"
order has not, as yet, been
produced -- as contemplated by the subpoena
issued by the house judiciary committee -- nor
was it turned over pursuant to the lawful
requests of the senate judiciary and house
oversight committees. so, the most inter-
esting development, from a legal point
of view, is the potential for a contempt-of-
congress charge from the house -- for an
apparently willful failure to produce
documents plainly covered a subpoena.

this charge will "have some stank
on it", because gonzales has repeatedly,
under oath, lauded the forthright manner in
which his office produced "all relevant
documents. . ." even president bush
has, in some measure, averred the
completeness of the attorney general's
cooperation, and his compliance with
the terms of the rep. conyers subpoena.

buckle-up. tomorrow will be a
rather busy news-day, i predict.