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.
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.
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.
Iglesias' name first showed up on a Nov. 15 list of federal prosecutors who would be asked to resign. It was not on a similar list prepared in October.
The Journal confirmed the sequence of events through a variety of sources familiar with the firing of Iglesias, including sources close to Domenici. The senator's office declined comment.
This is a huge story here. Some time after the November 6th election to around November 15th, Domenici called Rove to complain about Iglesias and asked Rove to take this issue directly to President Bush. We know that Rove was involved in initiating this entire attorney purge plan. Iglesias' name did not show up in the attorney hit list until November 15. Something happened within that week that caused Iglesias' name to be placed on the list. What is more, in the spring of 2006, Domenici told Gonzales to fire Iglesias. Gonzales refused, saying that he would only fire Iglesias under orders from President Bush. What we have here is a timeline, where Domenici takes his complaints of Iglesias to Gonzales first, then Rove, and finally to President Bush. This story brings a direct involvement of President Bush into this attorney purge scandal. What is really damning about this story is that there was a phone call between Bush and Domenici between November 6, and December 7--just before Iglesias was fired. This brings up the question of whether Domenici personally asked Bush to fire Iglesias--you can bet that both Domenici and Bush will deny that the issue of Iglesias ever came up in their phone call, and that Bush never personally ordered the firing of Iglesias. Still, the timeline here is very suspicious--especially considering how Gonzales refused to accede to Domenici's demands to fire Iglesias, and then having Domenici make a personal appeal to both Rove, and possibly the president.
Read the entire story. There is also a greater analysis of this story on TPM Muckraker.
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