1115.org

Time is reporting that the subject of granting immunity to Monica Goodling is under discussion:

Will Congress grant Monica Goodling immunity from prosecution in order to compel her to testify about the Bush Administration’s firing late last year of eight U.S. Attorneys?

Sources tell TIME that discussions are under way on Capitol Hill about whether to offer just such a deal to the key former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. … Were Goodling to receive some form of immunity, she could be legally compelled to testify or risk facing charges of contempt of Congress.

Despite phrases like “the question of immunity may be inevitable”, the story makes it clear the discussions are very preliminary, and that no decision is likely for a good long while.

This week, Congressional committees are conducting private interviews with top Justice Dept. witnesses, including Gonzales’ former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who may shed more light on the U.S. attorney firings, possibly including the role of the White House. Sometime later, the committees are expected to interview Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and others, but the conditions under which they will provide evidence is still being negotiated. The White House has continued to insist they would not testify under oath or with a transcript of the proceedings.

Legal experts say it is only after exhausting those alternative sources of information that the Congressional committees would decide whether or not to compel Goodling’s testimony…

In fact, deliberately or otherwise, the story manages to suggest that the main reason for holding immunity discussions with Goodling at this stage may be to put pressure on other witnesses to tell the whole truth and nothing but.

“Monica Goodling is the jugular that connects DOJ and the White House on this issue,” says Bruce Fein, a well-known conservative lawyer and former senior official in the Reagan Justice Dept. “The obvious possibility that she might be given a grant of immunity will put the fear of God into other witnesses and encourage their truth telling.”

There is, of course, a prominent witness who will be testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17. A witness whose past evidentiary appearances suggest that he may well stand in need of incentives to tell the truth.