Paper Suggests Bush Tied To Firing U.S. Attorney Iglesias

The Albuquerque Journal’s investigative reporter Mike Gallagher has a story that suggests that the U.S. attorneys don’t simply serve at the “pleasure” of the President, but that a Senator can go to a President if he doesn’t like a U.S. attorney and turn some of his apparently political displeasures into the President’s….who will give the Senator the political response he seeks.

The story seemingly links Bush directly to the firings and implies that a key motive for booting Iglesias was political. This means Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — who already faces a tough day when he testifies in the Senate Tuesday — is having yet another political nail hammered into his own political coffin:

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici, who had been unhappy with Iglesias for some time, made a personal appeal to the White House, the Journal has learned.

Yet another piece of info that decimates the White House claim that the attorneys were fired due to job performance evaluations and it wasn’t political. But MORE:

Domenici had complained about Iglesias before, at one point going to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales before taking his request to the president as a last resort.

The senior senator from New Mexico had listened to criticism of Iglesias going back to 2003 from sources ranging from law enforcement officials to Republican Party activists.

Domenici, who submitted Iglesias’ name for the job and guided him through the confirmation process in 2001, had tried at various times to get more white-collar crime help for the U.S. Attorney’s Office— even if Iglesias didn’t want it.

At one point, the six-term Republican senator tried to get Iglesias moved to a Justice Department post in Washington, D.C., but Iglesias told Justice officials he wasn’t interested.

In the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales he wanted Iglesias out.

Gonzales refused. He told Domenici he would fire Iglesias only on orders from the president.

At some point after the election last Nov. 6, Domenici called Bush’s senior political adviser, Karl Rove, and told him he wanted Iglesias out and asked Rove to take his request directly to the president.

And what happened next?

Domenici and Bush subsequently had a telephone conversation about the issue.

The conversation between Bush and Domenici occurred sometime after the election but before the firings of Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were announced on Dec. 7.

There’s more. It’s yet another press tidbit emerging in what is not just a drip-drip-drip of info painting a portrait of either an amazingly inept or amazingly corrupt administration — but a virtual waterfall of bad press…coupled with terrible political timing for the White House. The Albuquerque Tribune has a related story:

As embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales prepares to testify before Congress about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, a newly released Justice Department memo shows that Sen. Pete Domenici complained about the alleged failure of New Mexico’s attorney, David Iglesias, to “move cases.”

The memo written in February does not explain what cases Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, thought the former New Mexico attorney wasn’t moving. The person who wrote the memo, former Justice Department White House liaison Monica Goodling, has refused to testify before Congress, citing her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

An e-mail to Goodling also indicates she sought information on the Judge Advocate General service of Iglesias and another fired U.S. attorney, Daniel Bogden of Nevada.

At the bottom of the story it has this

In an e-mail, Iglesias told Justice Department officials that the task force was investigating two cases, but that he was not aware of any prosecutions that would occur before the 2004 general election. He also said the task force was aware of departmental policy not to influence the outcome of an election through “investigation or prosecution.”

Justice officials decided that Bingaman could be told that the nonpartisan task force was created after the office Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera contacted Iglesias’ office about 3,000 suspicious registrations, but that it would avoid interfering with the election.

After the election, influential New Mexico Republicans, including Domenici, complained to the Bush administration about Iglesias not bringing any voter fraud charges.

For an explanation of what this likely means, be sure to read Josh Marshall HERE. A small part of it:

Do you think it’s possible that Domenici didn’t mention his call to Iglesias just before the election and Iglesias’s alleged foot-dragging on indicting Democrats?

From the article we don’t know the precise date of the Rove and Bush conversations. But we do know that Iglesias’s name first shows up on the firing list on November 15th.

No one disputes that Domenici’s call to Iglesias was at best inappropriate. But there’s been a lack of direct evidence that Iglesias’s refusal to bow to political pressure led directly to his firing. Now we have that evidence. And it’s not Kyle Sampson or even Alberto Gonzales whom Domenici went to to get sign off for Iglesias’s ouster. It was right to the president. And the available evidence now points strongly to the conclusion that the final decision to fire David Iglesias came from the President of the United States.

Read it in full.