During the Thursday afternoon session (5/23/07) of the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) hearing on the US Attorneys' firing, Monica Goodling made a particularly interesting comment.

Of course there are so many points of interest in Goodling's testimony, but what I perceive to be one small "slip" may have gone unnoticed.

My curiosity was tweaked during Representative Robert Wexler’s (D - FL) portion. There was an exchange of questions and answers regarding the March 5th meeting called by the WH Counsel’s office. I think the attention was on the fact that Karl Rove was in attendance.

Using CSPAN's recorded version of the afternoon session you can see that at about the 9 minute, 30 second mark Wexler asked;

Wexler: "Was there any discussion about the termination of the prosecutors?"

Goodling: "Um, I remember at one point there was a reference to when, um, to when Tim Griffen's, ah, name was submitted to the President for approval and I, and I checked my book and said it was June. I think that was the only comment I made in the meeting... and I think that the only reference to a specific individual I remember in the meeting. ..."

What is of interest to me is Monica's admission of keeping a "book" which tracked the date/s when a name was submitted to the President.  What is also interesting is the ease in which she recalled / stated this fact of checking her "book" with no ambiguity.

This single comment raises many questions:

• Did she mean to speak about a book that tracked the dates "names were submitted to the President for approval?"
• Exactly how did she know when a name was submitted TO THE PRESIDENT?  By what method did she come by these facts: email, verbally, during a meeting.  And by whom did she get notified?  Seems ironic that she's in a meeting with WH Counsel and she is the one correcting the dates!!!????  Curious, no?
• In what document dump can we find this "book"?
• Did she previously disclose the existence of such a "book" to the HJC?
• Where is this book today?
• Does the HJC have possession?
• If the book is under DOJ "control" did the DOJ disclose the fact that they have it and it's relevance to Congress' request for ALL relevant documents.
• What other information related to this investigation is in the book?

Is there anything significant here or is this already known? It’s hard to keep track.

Go take a look and listen your self at C-SPAN's web site.  Under RECENT PROGRAMS you'll see: 

House Judiciary Full Cmte. Hearing on the U.S. Attorneys Investigation - PM Session <javascript:playClip(clip07)>