Goodling’s Lawyer Confuses Letter to John Conyers with Screaming Head Debate on FOX News

Brian Zick

Monica Goodling's attorney, who has advised his client to invoke the Fifth Amendment (with dubious legal justification) has responded to a letter from John Conyers and Linda Sanchez, that invited Goodling to appear in private, by hurling an insult. Lawyer John Dowd explicitly equated Conyers and Sanchez with Joe McCarthy. Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker reports: In a four-page letter today, the lawyer for Justice Department official Monica Goodling again rebuffed Democrats' efforts to hear her testify. Responding to a letter from House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) yesterday, Goodling's lawyer John Dowd pulled no punches, at one point even comparing Conyers to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, "who infamously labeled those who asserted their constitutional right to remain silent before his committee 'Fifth Amendment Communists.'" TPM has posted a copy of the letter. The guy doesn't know the law. And he doesn't know history either. He seems to fancy himself as some sort of pugnacious Sean Hannity/Bill O'Reilly in-your-face (and similarly fact-free) debater, inhabiting a fantasy Winger World. He's not doing his client any favors.

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