Monica Goofling: It’s Not A Crime If You Don’t Mean It To Be

So the much anticipated testimony of former Justice Department flack Monica Goofling (The “GOP’s Monica” as HuffPo puts it) was revealing if for only she basically admitted she “crossed the line” with her behavior in Attorney-gate, but doesn’t think it was illegal because she didn’t “intend to commit a crime.”

Get a load of this exchange (C&L has the video) with judiciary committee member Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va. “on her decisions to hire prosecutors who favored Republican priorities” (a clear violation of federal law):

SCOTT: “Do you believe [your actions] were illegal or legal?”

GOOFLING: “I don’t believe I intended to commit a crime.”

SCOTT: “Did you break the law? Is it against the law to take those considerations into account?”

GOOFLING: “I believe I crossed the line, but I didn’t mean to.”

LOL. This is kinda like Nixon’s infamous “it’s not a crime if the president does it” defense. While intent is certainly 4/5 of the equation when trying to discern the mens rea or “criminal mind” behind criminal behavior, the notion that a Justice Department Liaison to the White House didn’t know that hiring or firing attorneys for political patronage wasn’t criminal behavior because “she didn’t mean” it to be is laughable and absurd. No wonder she took the immunity deal from John Conyers.

Goofling also hung out to dry former Deputy AG Paul McNulty, accusing him of misleading the “Congress, intentionally or otherwise, in his testimony about the firings by minimizing the role of the White House.”

Apparently she never heard McNulty’s response to this, which was that he misled Congress because Goofling deliberately kept information from him, trying to get him to hang himself in front of the committee back in February.

But don’t let a few facts get in the way, Monica…especially if you “don’t mean to.”

Cross posted from AoF