The dismissal of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias in December 2006 followed extensive communication among lawyers and political aides in the White House who hashed over complaints about his work on public corruption cases against Democrats, according to newly released e-mails and transcripts of closed-door House testimony by former Bush counsel Harriet Miers and political chief Karl Rove.

A campaign to oust Iglesias intensified after state party officials and GOP members of the congressional delegation apparently concluded he was not pursuing the cases against Democrats in a way that would help then- Rep. Heather Wilson in a tight releection race, according to interviews and Bush White House e-mails released Tuesday by congressional investigators. The documents place the genesis of Iglesias’s dismissal earlier than previously known. [...]

The House focused most of its attention on Iglesias, a rising star in New Mexico who came to displease his political patrons. Miers told investigators that Rove called her in September 2006, “agitated” about the slow pace of public corruption cases against Democrats and weak efforts to pursue voter fraud cases in the state. In the call, Miers said that Rove had described Iglesias as a “serious problem” and said he wanted “something done” about it. Miers testified that she called then Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to pass along the concerns.

Also, The Post reports that the debilitating amnesia that afflicted former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when he testified before Congress appears to be contagious.

In their testimony in June and July 2009, both Miers and Rove failed to recall key incidents , according to the transcripts. Miers said she could not recall events nearly 150 times in the course of her 10-hour deposition. Rove portrayed himself as receiving hundreds of e-mails a day, so that “asking me to remember replies is like asking me to remember a raindrop in a thunderstorm.”

“It’s unclear right now,” Iglesias said about whether his new role was already irrelevant based on the president’s executive order. “Obviously, we have a new Commander-in-Chief and I’m a naval officer. How it affects the cases I’m working on, I don’t think anyone really knows, because the majority of the detainees will have to be prosecuted in some form.”

Asked whether this could signal a possible move back into his old job as a federal prosecutor — Iglesias was among those terminated during the U.S. attorney firing scandal –  he hedged.

“I really like being back in the prosecution world,” he said. “It would depend on the exact nature of that position. One of things I’ve learned over the last 10 years is to never say never to new opportunities.”

]]> http://washingtonindependent.com/26556/iglesias-my-position-is-unclear-right-now/feed 1 http://washingtonindependent.com/26532/is-iglesias-new-role-already-irrelevant http://washingtonindependent.com/26532/is-iglesias-new-role-already-irrelevant#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:47:55 +0000 Kate Klonick http://washingtonindependent.com/?p=26532 If President Obama is drafting an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay, and he has already filed a motion to halt military commission trials, does that make fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias’ new gig as a Gitmo prosecutor irrelevant?

If the Gitmo prosecutions get moved from military jurisdiction to federal courts, it would seem that Iglesias’ role will likely be moot at that point.

We’ve called Iglesias and others to try to find out. We’ll let you know as soon as we get an answer.

A Justice Dept. inspector general report released last week concluded that Iglesias was forced to leave because he didn’t pursue public corruption and voter fraud cases that New Mexico Republicans wanted him to prosecute.

Now, 22 months after his dismissal, Iglesias said in a phone interview that the IG report vindicates his repeated assertion that he was fired for improper and possibly illegal reasons.

He also had a surprisingly upbeat assessment of where the U.S. attorney investigation will go next.

So far, neither Justice Dept. nor congressional investigators has gotten cooperation from the White House, especially former top Bush advisers Karl Rove and Harriet Miers. But Iglesias said that could change with the Justice Dept. naming a special prosecutor, acting Connecticut U.S. Atty. Nora Dannehy, to probe criminal misconduct in the firings.

“The special prosecutor has the ability to get White House documents,” Iglesias said. “If she has authority similar to what Patrick Fitzgerald [the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame investigation] had, she’ll have a lot of power.”

Not only did Rove and Miers not answer questions from the inspector general, but the White House did not turn over documents on the attorney dismissals. But Iglesias said that by specifically citing what documents were not turned over, the IG was “signaling to the special prosecutor what evidence was still out there and what was necessary.”

Iglesias is also confident that Congress’ probe into the scandal will last into the next administration.

“[Rep.] John Conyers, [D-Mi.] has made it clear that he wants to get to the bottom of this,” Iglesias said of the House Judiciary Committee chairman. A federal appeal courts ruled this week that whether Miers can be compelled give congressional testimony cannot be decided until next year.

Iglesias said he has kept in frequent contact with other dismissed U.S. attorneys since the IG report. “There’s been a lot of email chatter back and forth… we’re pretty high-spirited” he said. “The report made crystal clear that there is a small class of reasons that you cannot use to let go of a U.S. attorney.”

If the assessments of Iglesias are accurate, Alberto Gonzales and other former Justice Dept. officials may eventually face criminal charges.