Fired US attys say criminal cases will result from the firings.

David Iglesias, fired U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, and John McKay, fired U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, tell the Seattle Times that there may be criminal charges resulting from the Pearl Harbor Day Massacre of U.S. Attorneys. They also said that:

...they believe White House political operative Karl Rove and his aides instigated the dismissals and ultimately decided who among the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys should be fired.

This is a story that has a long way left to go.

My opinion - Attorney General Gonzales may well not be much of a manager. Lawyers often aren't. But contrary to the impression he left in his Senate testimony, he is a very intelligent man. He is, in fact, both intelligent enough and well-enough trained as a lawyer that he could plausibly present a story to the Senate in which the White House was totally unconnected to the real hand Rove and his staff had in the U.S. Attorney Purge. All Alberto G. had to do to present such a story was to appear to be a totally detached figurehead playing as leader while simply not understanding what was really going on. This would be play-acting worthy of an Oscar at the least, but Alberto is fully capable of such a performance.

If that is what is going on, it will only last as long as every knowledgeable person closely involved sticks to the pre-planned story. That is the real significance of Monica Goodling. She is quite young, not really old enough to realize the risks she was running. She is just now becoming aware that her entire future many be sacrificed so that the principle individuals she is being asked to protect can keep their power.She has got to be asking herself if it is worth the candle, and the people depending on her to stick to the story have to be feeling highly uncertain about her. The pressures on her from both sides have to be tremendous.

If, as Mckay and Iglesias say, this moves on the criminal cases, the pressure on Monica Goodling will get even greater, which is why her attorneys are trying to get immunity for her from Congress.

As I say, this story has a way to go.

David Iglesias filed Hatch Act complaint April 3rd.

The discussion of the U.S. Attorney Purge has begun to include reports of an investigation of violations of the Hatch Act recently. Now Think Progress has published a report of an interview with fired U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, David Iglesias. Mr. Iglesias says he filed a complaint against Gonzales, McNulty, Sampson and Goodling on april 3, 2007 and has spoken to the Office of Special Counsel’s (OSC)chief Scott Bloch who has begun the investigation.

Mr. Iglesias' complaint is that he was fired from a Hatch Act protected job for refusing to conduct politically-motivated investigations. Mr. Iglesias believes that his complaint may be what has led the OSC to look at the actions of Karl Rove.

Iglesias also said that while evidence of Rove’s potential illegal actions is currently only circumstantial, “I believe if OSC digs in, they can get direct evidence.”

[T]he Justice Department papers everything. I mean, the most minute issue has an incredible researched and memoed product. There has to be a paper trail. I haven’t seen it yet. If it’s not at the Justice Department, it has got to be at the White House.

Finally, Iglesias said he believes that Monica Goodling — former counsel to Alberto Gonzales and the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House — holds the “keys to the kingdom” in terms of uncovering the roots of the U.S. Attorney purge, since she can describe the communication that took place between the White House and the Justice Department.

Yesterday the House Judiciary Committee voted to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, which prevents her from taking the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying for fear that she would be convicted for her testimony.

The OSC "Hatch Act" investigation is one more front on which the White House has to defend itself. There are so very many fronts now. I am sure that Dick Cheney is having a lengthy "deja vu" experience returning to feelings he must have had in the embattled Nixon White House before Nixon resigned.

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:

• Ex-New Mexico US attorney David Iglesias is not happy
  March 20, 2007

My previous posts on the Steve Biscupic story:

• US Atty Biscupic (Wisc) saved his job by prosecuting Georgia Thompson
  April 14, 2007
• Georgia Thompson was convicted by right-wing media
  April 13, 2007,
• NY Times gets it right! See editorial today.
  April 09, 2007, and
• Wisconsin US attorney rammed through fake corruption case of Democrat before last Governor's election.
  April 06, 2007.

---

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.]

Ex-New Mexico US attorney David Iglesias is not happy

David Iglesian, ex-US attorney of New Mexico, tells his story in an OpEd in the New York Times.

WITH this week’s release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters. [Snip}

[N]ow that the record is out there in black and white for the rest of the country to see, the argument that we were fired for “performance related” reasons (in the words of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty) is starting to look more than a little wobbly.

United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.

US attorney Iglesias was expected to file corruption cases against Democrats in New Mexico just befor the 2004 election even though there was no evidence to support corruption cases.

It wasn't that there was too little evidence to support the cases. There was simply NO evidence to support such a prosecution. I'm unaware of any law against pressuring a US attorney to file an unsupported case, though I'm sure there must be one. The most important thing about the Iglesias case, though, is that he was fired for failing to file partisan cases just prior to an election.

This is a situation in which both Sen. Pete Domenici (R - NM) and Rep. Heather Wilson were pressuring Iglesias to misuse his office for partisan advantage. At the very least, that is a violation of the ethics codes in both the House and Senate.

Then there was the Office of the Attorney General, where the Chief of Staff has now committed a "Libby." That is, he resigned to take the heat off of Attorney General Gonzales and others in the office.

Then there are the emails and documents which have been turned over (grudgingly and incompletely - as bad as the ones that were turned over have been, what are they hiding?) to the Congress show that the White House knew all about the firings, the reasons for the firings, and helped chose who was to be fired.

This is not some rogue operation by one or two individuals. This is Republican Party Policy!

This clearly shows that the national Republican Party is a criminal enterprise, in much the same way as the Mafia is. Just with less honor. The firing of the US attorneys is an illegal criminal conspiracy (assuming that there is a law against pushing a US atorney to bring indictments for purely politicla reasons) that includes Republicans at all levels and in all branches of government. Certainly the Republican Party is run in a totally unethical manner.

This isn't America. This is some tinpot bannann republic run by crazed right-wingers.

It's time for the Republicans to go.