Today's Mix: Iglesias, U.S. Attorney Firings

More tidbits on the burgeoning scandal surrounding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys.

--Repubs Trash Iglesias: Once viewed by many in right wing circles as THE up and comer of Repub politics in the state, especially given his Hispanic, evangelical Christian background, David Iglesias is now being trashed by certain Repub bloggers and other mouthpieces of the Repub machine as a liar, cheater, egotist, ingrate, incompetent and even -- gasp -- a pawn of George Soros. I kid you not. I won't provide links because I don't want to drive traffic to the sources of these insults, but they're not hard to find.

--Domenici Caught in Another Lie: Domenici hired Lee Blalack, the former lawyer of both Duke Cunningham and Bill Frist, on February 28 -- the day that David Iglesias went public with his allegations. Despite having already secured expensive legal representation, Pete told the media he didn't know what Iglesias was talking about.
 
--Rovian "Vote Fraud" Strategy Figures in Cases: Karl Rove's apparent 2004 strategy to claim massive voter fraud on the part of Democrats figures prominently in the smearing of at least two U.S. Attorneys -- Washington's John McKay and New Mexico's David Iglesias. Both generated complaints from Republicans to the U.S. Justice Department because the attorneys found evidence inadequate to bring federal indictments (and headlines) for alleged illegal voter registration and other related voter fraud. According to TPMmuckraker's posts here and here, complaints were made about McKay's failure to pursue allegations of voter fraud by Democrats in Washington's 2004 gubernatorial election.

Here in New Mexico, the first grumblings about Iglesias began back in 2004 when the NM Republican Party's coordinated campaign to claim thousands of potential Democratic voters were fraudulent lost steam because Iglesias didn't think the evidence was sufficient to bring charges. I guess that's not allowed when Repubs want indictments for purely political reasons.

What I wanna know is: why would Iglesias -- a straight-arrow, Republican, evangelical Christian, former JAG attorney mentored by Domenici and befriended by Heather Wilson -- want to stop or stall indictments that would bring both his Party and himself significant political benefits unless there were serious problems with the evidence? Unable to accept such realitiess, too many on the right are suddenly pegging Iglesias as part of a vast left wing conspiracy against them. Desperation breeds delusional thinking. We've seen a lot of that lately, from Bush on down.

--Griffin Featured in BBC Voting Rights Expose: Investigative reporter Greg Palast gives us Bush’s New US Attorney a Criminal? The article details how "Timothy Griffin, Karl Rove’s assistant, the President’s pick as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas ... according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election. Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. You really need to read the entire article.

--Video Collection: We've featured various video and audio clips of Tuesday's Senate and House committee hearings with the fired attorneys, but Politics TV has put it all together with a collection of clips assembled from both hearings.

--Legal Basis for Ethics Complaints: Slate provides a clear analysis of the legal basis for bringing ethics claims against Rep. Heather Wilson and Sen. Pete Domenci

--Wison Campaign Donors: Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes, and Mitchell Wade (another co-conspirator in the Cunningham case) are all Heather Wilson donors:

• Brent Wilkes $1,000 
• ADCS PAC (Mitchell Wade) $2,000 
• Randy "Duke" Cunningham/Friends of Randy Cunningham $5,000