Passing the Fifth Around

Will there be an epidemic of taking the Fifth on Capitol Hill? Alberto's former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, is due to appear before Senate Judiciary on Thursday, and he's been cultivating the image that he'll be willing to talk. But in the latest document dump from the Justice Department, there's some material that fingers Sampson as being responsible for some inaccurate and misleading information being passed to Congress last month. TPMmukraker has the details. While Sampson didn't actually pass along the bad information that Karl Rove wasn't involved in choosing a new U.S. attorney to replace one that was drummed out by the Bush administration, he did brief the assistant attorney general who did write a letter with those false facts, and that puts the ball in his court. You can bet the Judiciary Committee will have some questions on the topic tomorrow. Will Sampson answer them, or will he assert his Constitutional right not to incriminate himself? Stay tuned.