Goodling's 5th Amendment assertion invalid:

From a letter (by Reps Conyers and Sanchez) quoted at TPMuckraker about Monica Goodling's asserting her 5th Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination:

The fact that a few Senators and Members of the House have expressed publicly their doubts about the credibility of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General in their representations to Congress about the U.S. Attorneys' termination does not in any way excuse your client from answering questions honestly and to the best of her ability. Of course, we expect (as we are sure you do) your client to tell the truth in any interview or testimony. The alleged concern that she may be prosecuted for perjury by the Department of Justice for fully truthful testimony is not only an unjustified basis for invoking the privilege and without reasonable foundation in this case but also so far as we know an unwarranted aspersion against her employer.

This sounds right to my uneducated ears. The 5th Amendment says

No person shall ... be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself....

But this has not historically been interpreted literally. People still must show up in court, and must assert the 5th Amendment privilege on each question that might cause them to be witnesses against themselves.

Although I'm not a lawyer, it seems to me that since Ms. Goodling has not been charged with any crime, it is particularly difficult for her to assert a privilege based on fear of her testimony being used against her. Of course, she may properly refrain from answering any question whose truthful answer would show that she had committed a crime. But the letter that Reps Conyers and Sanchez wrote to Goodling's lawyer makes a strong case that fear of an unwarranted prosecution for perjury is not a valid basis for asserting the 5th Amendment privilege. (If it were, then any witness could use this excuse to get out of giving any testimony any time, and subpoenas would rendered impotent.)