‘It’s open warfare over there’

About two weeks ago, we started hearing about the panic and paralysis that had taken over the [tag]Justice Department[/tag] in the wake of the [tag]prosecutor[/tag] [tag]purge[/tag] [tag]scandal[/tag]. “You have no idea,” said one Justice official, “how bad it is here.”

How’s the nation’s federal law-enforcement agency doing now? Apparently, it’s getting worse — the New York Daily News reports that “Gonzales’ closest advisers [have] turned on one another.”

“It’s unreal – it’s open warfare over there,” a former Justice official with close ties to Gonzales’ team told the Daily News. The AG’s ex-chief of staff Kyle Sampson will testify in the Senate tomorrow, and Gonzales’ ex-counsel Monica Goodling pleaded the fifth and refused to talk. [tag]Gonzales[/tag] has blamed Sampson for mistakes in how the firings were handled. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who privately blames Goodling for misleading him on the matter, may also be jockeying to take over if Gonzales resigns, sources said.

In fact, it seems part of the administration’s problem with this fiasco is an inability to find a convenient scapegoat. Gonzales blames Sampson, McNulty blames Goodling, the White House blames McNulty, Republicans on the Hill blame Gonzales, and no one on the right has figured out a way to blame Dems, the media, or MoveOn.org. It’s a wild west, every-man-for-himself environment … and these guys are yet to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Obviously, with so much finger-pointing, chances are these officials are going to contradict one another, making the whole bunch look worse. But just as importantly, it’s also more likely that at least one of these guys, motivated purely by self-interest, will cut some kind of deal and rat his or her colleagues out to save his or her skin.

Someone practically invented popcorn for a situation like this.



In other purge-related news:

* When Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) called David Iglesias to pressure him on a local federal investigation, Monica Goodling was on the call. My mistake. Goodling was on the call when Domenici called the Justice Department to complaint about Iglesias. She was not on the call when Domenici called Iglesias.

* White House officials have all but given up on their official email system, preferring private, un-archived, and unaccountable email addresses.

* Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Gonzales has been “badly weakened” by the scandal. “The explanation has been absolutely abysmal,” Hoekstra told C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal.”

* TPM: “Back in January, Dan Dzwilewski, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the San Diego field office, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Carol Lam’s dismissal would jeopardize on-going corruption investigations and that ‘I guarantee politics is involved.’ After his quotes were published, the folks back in DC told him to keep quiet.”

* Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sent a letter to Gonzales yesterday “demanding to know if senior counselor Monica Goodling is still a Justice Department employee and whether other key employees remain with the agency or have hired lawyers…. The letter also seeks the employment status of three other aides mentioned as possible witnesses.”

* With each passing comment, McNulty’s and Sampson’s versions of events become more contradictory.

* And USA Today reports that Senate Republicans are experiencing “scandal fatigue.” At this week’s caucus meeting, Specter asked GOP senators to downplay Goodling’s plan to take the 5th. The plea received “a lot of head shaking, a lot of eye-rolling,” said one senator who attended.

Stay tuned.