Sunday, April 15, 2007

US attorney Iglesias (NM) was fired after Bush decided to accomodate Sen. Domenici

The sequence of events that put David Iglesias (U.S. attorney, New Mexico) on the list to be fired in December included a demand by six term Senator Domenici (NM- R) of Bush that he direct Gonzales to fire him. The story is reported today in the Albuquerque Journal (and is excerpted by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.)

Alberto Gonzales thought highly of David Iglesias, and told Sen. Domenici that he would only fire Iglesia if George Bush told him to. So Sen. Domenici called Karl Rove and asked him to go to George Bush and get Iglesias fired. Karl did so, and President Bush then directed Alberto Gonzales to fire him. Iglesias was fired as part of the eight U.S. attorneys fired In December 2006.

It's clear that Iglesias was fired for not bringing indictments against Democrats just before the November 2006 election. Iglesias was unwilling to give in to the pressure from both Sen. Domenici and Rep. Wilson to bring purely political cases to indictment in the manner done by Steve Biscupic of Wisconsin.

My previous post on the David Iglesias story is here: My previous posts on the Steve Biscupic story:

Addendum 12:41 PM
Josh Marshall ties up all the loose threads and tells what is important about the Iglesias firing story:
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 have that evidence. And it's not Kyle Sampson or even Alberto Gonzales who Domenici went to to get sign off for Iglesias's ouster. It was right to the president. And the available evidence now points strongly the conclusion that the final decision to fire David Iglesias. [was made by George W. Bush.]

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