Democracy for New Mexico

Bush Dares Congress to Bring It On

Must See TV: Bush stamps his feet at a press appearance today and draws a line in the sand about his people answering questions on the prosecutor purge. Rove, Gonzales, Miers, etc. can testify before Congress BUT:

• not under oath
• only behind closed doors
• no video or transcripts allowed

Of course, he's merely trying to stop Democrats from making purely political points without substance, and he doesn't want all those "kleig lights" (he says) pointing at his people. He is, after all, only protecting the Executive Branch so that it can do a good job for the people. He will go to the mat on this and warns Congress to refrain from issuing subpoenas to try and force the testimony under oath. Or else. Democrats, we're waiting. Still keeping your powder dry for the big confrontations? Still insisting that "impeachment is off the table"?

This post on Kos considers the constitutional and legal options available to Congress. Here's what Leahy and Conyers are saying. Constitutional crisis here we come. Unless the Dems back down, of course. By the way, many Executive Branch folks have testified before Congress. According to Think Progress:

Democrats, citing a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, say presidential advisers, including 47 from the Clinton administration alone, have frequently testified before Congressional committees, both while serving the president and after they had left the White House.

Under oath too. As Janet Reno, for one, was forced to do. However, as everyone knows by now, these people weren't working for an all-powerful monarch. The Decider won't have any of it. The scary thing is that if Dems cave on this one, it will set a horrible precedent that will carry over to every single additional investigation they might want to conduct in the next two years. We can't let that happen, can we?

Justice Department Heralded Iglesias for Election Crime Expertise

Although fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias has been heavily criticized by New Mexico Republicans about his so-called "failure" to prosecute "voter fraud," he was lauded by the U.S. Department of Justice for his expertise in that area. In the latest installment of the prosecutor firing scandal, TPMmuckraker quotes a Washington Post story describing how Iglesias was one of two U.S. Attorneys tapped (twice) to teach at a "voting integrity" symposium:

One of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration after Republican complaints that he neglected to prosecute voter fraud had been heralded for his expertise in that area by the Justice Department, which twice selected him to train other federal prosecutors to pursue election crimes.

David C. Iglesias, who was dismissed as U.S. attorney for New Mexico in December, was one of two chief federal prosecutors invited to teach at a "voting integrity symposium" in October 2005. The symposium was sponsored by Justice's public integrity and civil rights sections and was attended by more than 100 prosecutors from around the country, according to an account by Iglesias that a department spokesman confirmed.

Iglesias, a Republican, said in an interview that he and the U.S. attorney from Milwaukee, Steven M. Biskupic, were chosen as trainers because they were the only ones identified as having created task forces to examine allegations of voter fraud in the 2004 elections. An agenda lists them as the panelists for a session on such task forces at the two-day seminar, which featured a luncheon speech by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

According to Iglesias, the agency invited him back as a trainer last summer, just months before a Justice official telephoned to fire him. He said he could not attend the second time because of his obligations as an officer in the Navy Reserve.

As more facts emerge about Iglesias' firing, it becomes crystal clear that complaints about his handling of alleged "voter fraud" in New Mexico are nothing more than politically partisan whining by New Mexico Republicans who wanted to use the issue to discredit Democrats and provide an excuse for their push for measures like voter ID. Such initiatives were used to discourage voting by Democratic constituents in a number of swing states for several election cycles. Despite grumblings by Sen. Domenici, Rep. Wilson, and politically powerful Republican attorneys Mickey Barnett and Pat Rogers about Iglesias' lack of indictments for "voter fraud," it's obvious Iglesias was actually considered to be an expert of sorts on the matter -- specifically due to his handling of complaints here in 2004.

All our posts on this issue can be found in our archive on this topic.

Iglesias on Fox News Sunday: "My Firing Was a Political Hit" (And More on "Voter Fraud")

Think Progress has video and a transcript. They report:

Today on Fox News Sunday, former U.S. attorney David Iglesias beat back several misleading claims by Bush administration officials, and reasserted that his firing was a “political hit,” not done for performance reasons.

He pointed out that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales agreed to write him a recommendation even after he was fired. “If [my firing] was performance based, there is no way they would have agreed to have allowed me to list them as a reference,” he said. “In fact, they agreed, telling me that the true nature was political, not performance.”

New York Times Has More
In the interview with Iglesias, Chris Wallace referred to today's New York Times front page story about the scandal, which reports:

Mr. Iglesias defended his handling of the vote-fraud and other investigations, saying his critics did not have access to the findings that guided his decisions. He says the attacks occurred because state Republican leaders felt betrayed, figuring “We helped the guy get the position, he owes us some kind of fealty.” [emphasis mine]

The article had this to say about the political maneuvering in New Mexico and Washington regarding Iglesias:

Mr. Iglesias said he had believed that his bosses shared his view that United States attorneys should stay above the fray. “I thought I was insulated from politics,” he said in an interview. “But now I find out that main Justice was up to its eyeballs in partisan political maneuvering.”

Since his ouster, Mr. Iglesias has received support from other federal prosecutors, who say the department failed to honor its obligation to ensure that decisions about prosecutions are free of political taint.

“People who understand the history and the mission of the United States attorney and Justice Department — they are uniformly appalled, horrified,” said Atlee W. Wampler III, chairman of a national organization of former United States attorneys and a prosecutor who served in the Carter and Reagan administrations. “That the tradition of the Justice Department could have been so warped by that kind of action — any American should be disturbed.”

Lack of Evidence of "Voter Fraud"
As to the alleged "voter fraud" that had Republican attorney Mickey Barnett and others so het up in 2004 in New Mexico, Iglesias lays out why he could not and did not bring charges, despite being pressured by Republicans eager for headlines they could use to their advantage in the election:

To appear even-handed, Mr. Iglesias set up a bipartisan task force with state officials to look into the matter. But soon after announcing his plan, he received an e-mail message from Mickey D. Barnett, a Republican lawyer who represented the Bush campaign in New Mexico, urging him just to bring federal charges against any violators.

Culling through about 100 tips about fraud, investigators found only a handful that had some merit, and “only one where we had a real shot,” Mr. Iglesias said.

That inquiry focused on the woman who had submitted the registration applications in the names of the teenagers and at least two dozen others. Mr. Iglesias said she had worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, which had paid her and others in part based on how many applications they turned in.

He said that when the F.B.I. interviewed her, she did not make any clear admission of guilt. And under federal election law, Mr. Iglesisas said, prosecutors would have had to prove that the woman, who had been fired for other reasons, had falsified the applications with the intent of influencing the election. Mr. Iglesias said “it appeared she was just doing it for the money.”

Albuquerque Attorney John Boyd Weighs In
Be sure to read New Mexico FBIHOP's post on "voter fraud", which includes coverage of a Brad Blog story that reports on studies showing American "voter fraud" to be a bogus problem, as well as a must-read statement by Albuquerque attorney John Boyd, who represented the Democratic Party of New Mexico when state Repubs filed voter fraud claims in 2004.

Front-Paged at Daily Kos (Again)
The Party That Cried Voter Fraud is another excellent commentary on the "voter fraud" that wasn't, and why the Repubs are constantly crying wolf on this issue. Hint: It provides cover for their own extensively documented election fraud and gives them an excuse to try reduce the numbers of Democrats who register and vote.

For even more on the "voter fraud" angle to this story, read our previous post. All of our posts on the U.S. Attorney firings can be found in our archive.

U.S. Attorney Firings: The "Voter Fraud" Angle

The Bush wing of the Republican Party, nationally and here in New Mexico and other states, has long been pumping out misinformation and distorted spin about alleged "voter fraud." As I'm sure you've noticed, one of the major complaints about U.S. Attorney David Iglesias by Domenici, Wilson and other New Mexico Repubs has been that he didn't bring a voter fraud case before the 2004 election, or since.

Various mouthpieces for the Party have repeatedly claimed that massive voter fraud -- by Democratic voters or those registering them -- exists in our state. They claim to have turned over tons of "evidence" of this to Iglesas in 2004. They've been pissed off ever since because he obviously didn't find anything that merited the timely indictments they wanted to use for political hay. Instead, Iglesias appointed a bipartisan task force to study the problem. Surprise -- they found nothing but minor infractions and certainly nothing that rose to the level of "massive voter fraud." Regardless, the Repubs have kept up the disinformation campaign to this day, and now the Department of Justice is using the issue as yet another excuse for firing Iglesias and other U.S. Attorneys.

Iglesias Addresses "Voter Fraud" Claims
As reported today in an Albuquerque Tribune article, here's Igelsias' response to the accusations that he had adequate evidence to issue indictments for voter fraud in New Mexico but refused to do so for some reason:

Iglesias also countered Justice Department claims that his inability to bring indictments in a voter fraud case was a primary reason for his dismissal. His office was one of two in the nation, he told KRQE, that formed a voter fraud task force. It investigated numerous complaints about voter fraud but found only one case that might have gone forward.

"But after looking at the evidence" and conferring with higher level department officials, he said, "we decided jointly" not to pursue prosecution "because we did not have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt."

Repubs Push "Voter Fraud" Strategy in New Mexico
NM Repub State Chair, Allen Weh, continued the harangue on this non-issue into New Mexico's 2005 legislative session, where Repub lobbyists and legislators pushed strict voter ID bills as their preferred solution to a problem they couldn't prove existed. It was a part of a longstanding, Rove-inspired effort to make it harder for people to vote in swing states -- especially people who might be expected to vote Democratic. You may recall the problems created by Republican operatives in Florida and Ohio during the last two presidential elections.

While Dem legislators in Santa Fe worked with nonpartisan election reform activists and election officials to craft bills to improve many aspects of the New Mexico election process, including a switch to a paper ballot system statewide, many Repubs fought them tooth and nail and kept up the "voter fraud" litany. Many Bush Repubs voted against every single bill to reform and improve New Mexico's election process EXCEPT for voter ID measures.

Digging back into our archives, here's a post from early May of 2005 about Allen Weh's fact-impaired attack on Dem Sen. Linda Lopez and the election reform measures she helped craft and pass. It includes her response to Weh's wacky accusations. 

Ironic, isn't it, that Bush and his cronies keep trying to project their own sins onto Democrats in states where elections have recently been close ones? They keep crying wolf with their voter fraud allegations but, so far, haven't managed to come up with a shred of valid evidence to prove their case -- even when they hand their "documentation" to a Republican U.S. Attorney and pressure him any which way they can to get him to play ball with them.

Rove's Pattern of Using Concocted Indictments for Political Gain
More discussion of the voter fraud angle emerged today in an excellent Salon piece by Sidney Blumenthal entitled, "All Roads Lead to Rove." You really should read it in its entirety because it does such a great job of laying out Rove's involvement in the recent political purges, as well as his history of using the FBI for political gains. Here are a few nuggets:

White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, acknowledged that the U.S. attorneys' dismissals were preceded by a conversation between President Bush and Gonzales last October in which Bush complained that some prosecutors were not pursuing voter fraud investigations. These were, in fact, cases that Rove thought were especially important to Republicans.

... Rove was the conduit for Republican political grievances about the U.S. attorneys. He was the fulcrum and the lever. He was the collector of information and the magnet of power. He was the originator, formulator and director. But, initially, according to the administration, like Gonzales, he supposedly knew nothing and did nothing.

... From the earliest Republican campaigns that Rove ran in Texas, beginning in 1986, the FBI was involved in investigating every one of his candidates' Democratic opponents. Rove happened to have a close and mysterious relationship with the chief of the FBI office in Austin. Investigations were announced as elections grew close, but there were rarely indictments, just tainted Democrats and victorious Republicans. On one occasion, Rove himself proclaimed that the FBI had a prominent Democrat under investigation -- an investigation that led to Rove's client's win. In 1990, the Texas Democratic Party chairman issued a statement: "The recurring leaks of purported FBI investigations of Democratic candidates during election campaigns is highly questionable and repugnant."

... In 2002, the first midterm elections of the Bush presidency, Republicans systematically raised charges of voter fraud involving Native Americans in the hotly contended U.S. Senate race in South Dakota. Though the accusations were never proved and the GOP failed to depose the Democratic senator, Tim Johnson, the campaign served as a template.

By the election of 2004, Rove became a repository of charges of voter fraud across the country, from Philadelphia to Milwaukee to New Mexico, all in swing states. In the campaign, unproven voter fraud charges, always aimed at minority voters, became a leitmotif of Republican efforts.

... In 2006, Rove addressed the Republican Lawyers Association on the "growing problem," as he put it, of voter fraud. Every instance he cited was in a swing state. New Mexico was one of them.

Rove had heard complaints from the New Mexico Republican Party chairman, Allen Weh, about David Iglesias, the state's U.S. attorney, for his supposed refusal to indict Democrats for voter fraud. Iglesias appeared to be a dream figure for local Republicans -- the model for the movie "A Few Good Men," Hispanic and evangelical. "Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh asked Rove at a White House Christmas party. "He's gone," Rove replied. Indeed, Iglesias' firing was already a done deal. [emphasis mine]

The Charade Continues
Funny, if you read local rightwing blogs, they're still insisting that Iglesias was justifiably in hot water because he refused to prosecute "voter fraud" cases. I still haven't heard any logical reason he might refuse, other than the fact that evidence didn't exist to justify indictments. I guess once the locals start repeating Rove's talking points, they can't bring themselves to stop even if the case they're trying to make is clearly not valid or factual.

Another good source of information on this issue is Talking Point Memo's archive of "voter fraud" posts that dates back to the 2002 election cycle.

To read DFNM's past coverage of the attorney purge, visit our post archive on the story.

Sen. Schumer Nails Domenici, Wilson; Lays Out Lies in Attorney Firings

Video clip from Sen. Chuck Schumer's press conference earlier today. He also says,

The latest revelations prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there has been unprecedented breach of trust, abuse of power and misuse of the Justice Department. And that is very serious and very important.

About the Iglesias firing:

Political operatives and elected officials in New Mexico complained about one U.S. attorney's failure to indict Democrats quickly enough. Those complaints were passed on to Karl Rove and to the president himself.

The president weighed in with Attorney General Gonzales. And within weeks, that U.S. attorney, David Iglesias, was fired.

Indeed, today's reports make clear that Mr. Iglesias was not on the hit list until October, just when he was staving off inappropriate pressure tactics.

So if he wasn't on the list when the list was made up, and then you get the phone calls from the White House and from legislators, and then he's added to the list, what conclusion other than political interference can one come to? [emphasis mine]

Here he lists the lies uncovered so far:

From transcript. Schumer: Here are some of the falsehoods we've been told that are now unraveling.

First, we were told that the seven of the eight U.S. attorneys were fired for performance reasons.

It now turns out this was a falsehood, as the glowing performance evaluations attest.

Second, we were told by the attorney general that he would, quote, "never, ever make a change for political reasons."

It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as all the evidence makes clear that this purge was based purely on politics, to punish prosecutors who were perceived to be too light on Democrats or too tough on Republicans.

Third, we were told by the attorney general that this was just an overblown personnel matter.

It now turns out that far from being a low-level personnel matter, this was a longstanding plan to exact political vendettas or to make political pay-offs.

Fourth, we were told that the White House was not really involved in the plan to fire U.S. attorneys. This, too, turns out to be false.

Harriet Miers was one of the masterminds of this plan, as demonstrated by numerous e-mails made public today. She communicated extensively with Kyle Sampson about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. In fact, she originally wanted to fire and replace the top prosecutors in all 93 districts across the country.

Fifth, we were told that Karl Rove had no involvement in getting his protege appointed U.S. attorney in Arkansas.

In fact, here is a letter from the Department of Justice. Quote: "The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin."

It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as demonstrated by Mr. Sampson's own e-mail. Quote: "Getting him, Griffin, appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, et cetera.

Sixth, we were told to change the Patriot Act was an innocent attempt to fix a legal loophole, not a cynical strategy to bypass the Senate's role in serving as a check and balance.

It was Senator Feinstein who discovered that issue. She'll talk more about it.

So there has been misleading statement after misleading statement -- deliberate misleading statements. And we haven't gotten to the bottom of this yet, but believe me, we will pursue it.

(Thanks to TPMmuckraker for the terrific work on this.)

The Gift That Keeps On Giving: Document Dump in U.S. Attorneys Scandal

Local blogger New Mexico FBIHOP is scanning the large volume of emails and documents related to the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys that was just made available by the U.S. Department of Justice. He's picking out choice morsels related to New Mexico's David Iglesias, Sen. Pete Domenici, prominent Republican Mickey Barnett and more, plus he provides links to the pdfs of the documents. I'd say it's a must read ....

I see that Heath Haussamen down in Las Cruces is also poring over the emails. Here's his contribution to the dissection of this scandal. Nobody can read everything or read it fast enough so it's helpful to have so many all over the web plowing this ground from differing angles.

TPMmuckraker is tossing out new info on this scandal by the hour. I checked the FeedBurner tracker for the site, which provides short summaries of their posts, but I can't get into the site itself at the moment. Maybe you'll have better luck. TPMmuckraker must be overwhelmed with hits as the damning facts of this story explode. They've definitely been one of the best sources of breaking info on the firings and the unfolding story of White House and Justice Department political involvement.

"Domenici Is So Busted"

More, more, more. Today's articles on the U.S. attorney firing scandal in the Washington Post and the New York Times provide additional revelations about the political nature of the firings and the involvement of Justice Department officials close to Gonzales, was well as then White House Counsel Harriet Miers. Mahablog does a great job of gleaning the facts from both the articles and weaving them into a clear narrative. Under the title, "This is Huge," Mahablog concludes:

A White House document dump has provided new revelations about the U.S. Attorney purge. And the biggest revelation — although not a surprising one — is that the idea to fire U.S. Attorneys and replace them with politically compliant toadies originated in the White House.

On the Domenici angle:

Eggen and Solomon, WaPo:

On the day of the Dec. 7 firings, Miers’s deputy, William Kelley, wrote that Domenici’s chief of staff “is happy as a clam” about Iglesias.

A week later, Sampson wrote: “Domenici is going to send over names tomorrow (not even waiting for Iglesias’s body to cool).”

Domenici is so busted. [emphasis mine]

The New York Times article also reports that Domenici spoke directly to Bush on Iglesias:

Last October, President Bush spoke with Mr. Gonzales to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud, the White House said Monday. Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, was among the politicians who complained directly to the president, according to an administration official.

In following the paper trail, Mahablog reports:

... In early 2005, White House legal counsel Harriet Miers asked D. Kyle Sampson, a justice department official, if it would be feasible to fire and replace all 93 U.S. attorneys. It appears the White House was unhappy with the attorneys because Republicans were alleging widespread voter fraud on the part of Democrats, and the attorneys were unwilling to bring indictments against the Democrats, most probably because the allegations were a fantasy. (Josh Marshall provides an archive of his posts on the voter fraud allegations going back to 2001.)

However, as Johnston and Lipton note, the documentation isn’t clear if the voter fraud issue was the real or only reason.

The documents did not provide a clear motive for the firings. Some suggested that department officials were dissatisfied with specific prosecutors, but none cited aggressive public corruption inquiries or failure to pursue voter fraud cases as an explicit reason to remove them.

As has been widely noted in the recent past, the pattern suggests that the White House and the Republican Party generally have been using the Justice Department as part of their election campaign process. In other words, Karl and Co. have been turning our criminal justice system into a Republican Party machine. [emphasis mine]

Sampson — who resigned yesterday, btw — replied to Miers that filling that many jobs at once would be too big a job. (The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the same thing at the time.) Instead, Miers and Sampson began working together on a select list of attorneys to replace. As they did this, Karl Rove and other White House officials helpfully relayed the complaints they were getting from Republican officials about the attorneys’ failure to indict Democrats on voter fraud.

Eggen and Solomon, WaPo (emphasis added):

The e-mails [between Miers and Sampson] show that Rove was interested in the appointment of a former aide, Tim Griffin, as an Arkansas prosecutor. Sampson wrote in one that “getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc.”

Sampson sent an e-mail to Miers in March 2005 that ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys. Strong performers “exhibited loyalty” to the administration; low performers were “weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.” A third group merited no opinion.

In January 2006, Sampson sent a first list of attorneys to be fired to the White House. Four of the attorneys who would be fired were on this list: Chiara, Cummins, Lam and Ryan. This list also suggested Tim Griffin be one of the replacements.

Delving into the Iglesias firing, Mahablog says:

Notice this little detail, from Eggen and Solomon:

Iglesias, the New Mexico prosecutor, was not on that list. Justice officials said Sampson added him in October, based in part on complaints from Sen. Pete V. Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans that he was not prosecuting enough voter-fraud cases.

You may remember that in October 2006 — shortly before the elections — Domenici had called U.S. attorney David Iglesias and asked him about the status of an investigation into a Democratic state senator. Domenici also spoke to President Bush. Then Bush spoke to Gonzales “to pass along concerns by Republicans that some prosecutors were not aggressively addressing voter fraud,” Johnston and Lipton write. Thus Iglesias was added to the purge list, even though he had received a “strong performer” rating from Miers and Sampson in the earlier stages of their list-making. [emphasis mine]

No wonder Sen. Domenici hired Duke Cunningham's lawyer on February 28, as soon as he heard about David Iglesias talking to the media about his firing, even though Pete was claiming he had no idea what Iglesias was talking about.

The Mahablog summarizes many more compelling details from the WaPo and Times articles and is definitely worth reading in its entirety. The steady emergence of new facts in this scandal on a daily and sometimes hourly basis can only mean growing legal and ethical problems for Sen. Domenici, Rep. Wilson, Alberto Gonazales, Karl Rove and who knows who else with offices in the White House. I guess Gonzales is rethinking his pronouncement that this is nothing more than "an overblown personnel matter."

Sen. Leahy to Target Gonzales and White House in Attorney Firings; Key Gonzales Deputy Resigns

According to a post today by Bob Geiger, Sen. Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, just issued the following strongly worded statement. In no uncertain terms, Sen. Leahy gives notice that the partisan maneuvers of the White House and the inaccurate statements given under oath by AG Alberto Gonzales related to the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys and other matters will be scrutinized as never before:

"The White House and the Attorney General have dodged Congress’s questions and ducked accountability as if they still were dealing with a rubberstamp Congress. They are discovering that those days are gone.

“I am outraged that the Attorney General was less than forthcoming with the Senate while under oath before the Judiciary Committee. It is deeply disturbing that this plan appears to have originated from high-ranking officials at the White House and executed in secret with a complicit Department of Justice.

“This is not how justice is served, nor is it how our system of checks and balances is designed to work. It is an abuse of power committed in secret to steer certain outcomes in our justice system, and then to dust over the tracks. The President of the United States and the Attorney General are responsible for setting the moral standard for this Administration. Apparently this matter does not bother them but it does bother me, and we will summon whoever we need in our hearings to get to the bottom of this.” [emphasis mine]

Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting on the resignation of Gonzales' top aide, and Sen. Schumer's response to the resignation:

The chief aide to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned amid new revelations about the Bush administration's ouster of eight U.S. attorneys.

The Justice Department announced the resignation of Kyle Sampson, who was Gonzales's chief of staff. Sampson may be called to testify by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are demanding to know more about the firings. Democrats have likened the dismissals to a political purge.

"U.S. attorneys have always been above politics, and this administration has blatantly manipulated the U.S. attorney system to serve its political needs,'' Senator Charles Schumer of New York said at a news conference in Washington today. Schumer said Sampson's departure "does not take the heat off the attorney general. In fact, it raises the temperature.''

Bloomberg also reports that Sen. Leahy plans to summon Gonzales, Sampson and Harriet Miers to testify saying, "We will have hearings and there will be subpoenas, and people will be under oath." Leahy hasn't yet decided whether or not to summon Karl Rove.

Playing Catch-Up: Gonzales, Rove, NM Repubs and the Iglesias Scandal

Sheesh, take a couple days off from politics to relax and drive up north into Georgia O'Keeffe country, and the media and blogsphere explode with new revelations about the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. New names in the mix include Karl "Rovesputin" Rove (right), NM Republican Party Chair Allen Weh and assorted New Mexico lawyers of the Republican persusasion. I've been playing catch-up today and I imagine you might be too. Where to speed read for the latest developments? Good places to start are posts on a few of our local political blogs that are chasing this story, including Joe Monahan, New Mexico FBIHOP and Heath Haussamen.

NM Repub Party Chair Weh Brings Rove Into the Picture
Carpetbagger Report has a good rundown on the weekend's stories about Weh pushing Rove and one of his aides to can Iglesias. Today, the White House admitted Rove's involvement, as reported in another excellent story from McClatchy Newspapers, which original broke the early developments in the scandal:

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Rove had relayed complaints from Republican officials and others to the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. She said Rove, the chief White House political operative, specifically recalled passing along complaints about former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and may have mentioned the grumblings about Iglesias to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

We have Weh claiming he whined to Rove deputy Scott Jennings in 2005 and to Rove personally in late 2006 about Iglesias not moving quickly enough on cases of political importance to the NM Republican Party. Rove and the deputy both claim they can't remember Weh talking with them about Iglesias, though they don't dispute the content of the conversations.

Rove reportedly then passed on the complaints about Iglesias to AG Alberto Gonzales, who passed them on to Harriet Meirs, then White House Counsel. Of course there was nothing "political" about any of this. As Gonzales testified under oath to a Senate committee back in January, he would "never" fire U.S. Attorneys for political reasons. No, he was just tending to routine performance reviews and personnel matters, despite the preponderance of glowing reviews in the files of the fired U.S. Attorneys. Oops. House Democrats will definitely be questioning Rove to learn more about his involvement:

Democrats consider Rove the key source for any political interference at the Justice Department because of his role at the center of politics and policy in the White House.

Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., and Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., confirmed their plans after McClatchy Newspapers reported Saturday that New Mexico's Republican Party chairman, Allen Weh, had complained to Rove and one of Rove's deputies about Iglesias.

"Mr. Conyers and Ms. Sanchez intend to talk with Karl Rove about any role he may have had in the firing of the U.S. attorneys," Sanchez spokesman James Dau said. "The revelations from Mr. Weh certainly give us something else relevant and salient to talk about."

Today, Sen. Chuck Schumer asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to call on Rove to testify, making this statement:

The more we learn, the more it seems that people at high levels in the White House have been involved in the U.S. Attorney purge... Recent disclosures reveal that Rove talked to the NM State Party Chair Allen Weh before any public announcement of the firing was made and that Rove talked about Mr. Igleisas to the Attorney General and the White House Counsel. While the White House states not incorrectly that someone in Karl Rove’s position might get complaints about U.S. Attorneys, it is almost unheard of for a U.S. Attorney to be fired shortly after such discussions occur, when that US Attorney had received highly favorable reviews and ratings.

Gonzales Next Up in the Hot Seat
Now we've got pressure building for Alberto Gonzales to resign:

In another development, two leading Democrats said Gonzales should resign. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Gonzales has lost credibility with his handling of the firings, his failure to catch privacy infringements by federal investigators operating under the Patriot Act and other controversies at the Justice Department.

The New York Times editorial board has even come out and called for Alberto's resignation, characterizing him as a "failed attorney general" and concluding that:

He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency. If anyone, outside Mr. Bush’s rapidly shrinking circle of enablers, still had doubts about that, the events of last week should have erased them.

And MyDD reports that national blogs are calling for the impeachment of Gonazales AND Rove.

New Mexico Scene
Talking Points Memo covers the involvement of New Mexico Republicans Pat Rogers and Mickey Barnett in the pressuring of Iglesias. Meanwhile, another McClatchy article entitled, "Firing of U.S. attorneys may be 'enormously problematic' for Republicans," has this to say:

"It would be enormously problematic if, in fact, the Justice Department or the White House were trying to use U.S. attorneys for political purposes," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. "The questions are now hanging in the air."

Some Democrats hear echoes of Watergate in the administration's dismissals of the prosecutors ...

A examines the shifting political landscape in New Mexico due to the involvement of Rep. Heather Wilson, Sen. Pete Domenici and other locals in the scandal, and provides some background on how Iglesias fell from grace with our state's Republicans.

And an Albuquerque Tribune article considers the possibility that Mr. Iglesias may end up running for Rep. Wilson's or Sen. Domenici's seat -- as a primary challenger within the Republican Party. Now wouldn't that be rich?

(Rovesputin graphic above from darkblack via firedoglake.)

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