Major development in the on-going scandal surrounding the firings of the U.S. Attorneys:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor to pursue possible criminal charges against Republicans involved in the controversial firings of U.S. attorneys.

The move is the top recommendation of a Justice Department investigation that harshly criticizes Bush administration officials, members of Congress and their aides.

Results of the investigation were made public Monday. The report singled out the removal of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias (ih-GLAY'-see-us) of New Mexico as the most troubling.

A central player in the U.S. Attorneys firings, David Iglesias, reports he is being interviewed by the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Ethics Committee today.  Iglesias was called by Rep. Heather Wilson last fall.  That revelation prompted CREW to ask for an ethics investigation of Wilson.  Apparently, an ethics investigation is underway based on today's The Albuquerque Tribune:

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias of Albuquerque will be interviewed by the staff of the House Ethics Committee on July 31, the first sign that the committee might actually consider whether Rep. Heather Wilson violated House ethics rules by calling Iglesias about a pending investigation.

Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, has not been notified of any investigation and has not hired an attorney, according to her press spokesman, Joel Hannahs. That would indicate that the Ethics Committee has not appointed a panel of members to sit as an investigating subcommittee, the first step in any formal investigation.

Iglesias said he was told he would be interviewed by the committee's chairwoman, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, an Ohio Democrat, and its ranking Republican, Doc Hastings of Washington.

Wilson and Sen. Pete Domenici, also an Albuquerque Republican, each called Iglesias in October to ask about a pending investigation of courthouse construction contracts that involved former Democratic state Sen. Manny Aragon.

Iglesias, who was fired Dec. 7, has testified that Domenici asked him whether indictments would be issued soon and that Wilson asked him for there were any "sealed" indictments. Both calls were placed before the Nov. 7 election, in which Wilson faced a strong challenge from Democrat Patricia Madrid.

Earlier this year, as the U.S. Attorneys scandal was unfolding, we learned that Senator Pete Domenici had made a phone call to then U.S. Attorney David Iglesias about a pending case. Believing that phone call violated Senate rules, CREW filed an ethics complaint against Senator Domenici. An investigation is apparently underway.

The Senator from New Mexico is not too happy about his involvement with the case. Actually, he's dismissive of his role. But as Think Progress notes, and we agree, "he's central to it":

On MSNBC earlier today, correspondent Andrea Mitchell asked Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) about “the controvesy over the firing of the U.S. attorneys, in particular David Iglesias,” who the senator infamously called soon before he was asked to resign. “Would you testify if called by your colleagues on the Judiciary Committee?” Mitchell asked.

“I wouldn’t testify unless I am supposed to under our rules or unless I have to,” replied Domenici. “From my standpoint, I’m not going to talk about it because I want mine over with, if six senators can pass on it.”

“It has little or nothing to do with this case,” added Domenici, in reference to the President’s invocation of executive privilege yesterday to prevent his aides from testifying before Congress about the scandal....

As much as Domenici may want to believe that he “has little or nothing to do” with the attorney scandal, in reality, he is central to it.

Yesterday, fired U.S. Attorneys John McKay and David Iglesias said that the still unfolding U.S. Attorneys scandal could result in criminal prosecutions. Today, Iglesias told a reporter at The Albuquerque Tribune that the U.S. Attorneys scandal is not only not over, he thinks the scandal is heading right to Karl Rove:

As the story widened, Iglesias' allegations became the centerpiece of Democratic claims that the firings of the eight prosecutors - most of whom had received positive job reviews and evaluations - amounted to unprecedented and dangerous political meddling in the U.S. Justice Department.

That story hasn't reached its end, Iglesias predicts. Several of the fired prosecutors, such as himself, were in the midst of public corruption investigations when they were forced out.

"I think all roads lead to Rove," Iglesias says. "I think that's why the president is circling some pretty major wagons around him to keep him from testifying under oath, which subjects him to criminal prosecution."

Hat tip to Think Progress for the link.

Two of the fired U.S. Attorneys raised the possibility that criminal charges could result from the on-going scandal over the firings.   Let's keep in mind that these are former U.S. Attorneys who know a thing or two about when laws are broken:

Two former U.S. attorneys said today they believe ongoing investigations into the dismissals last year of eight federal prosecutors could result in criminal charges against senior Justice Department officials.

John McKay, the former U.S. attorney for Western Washington, and David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, also said 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.

McKay and Iglesias, who were among those fired, made their assertions during a meeting this morning with Seattle Times editors and reporters. The two are scheduled to appear this afternoon along with Paul Charlton, the former U.S. attorney for Arizona, during a public-policy forum on the dismissals at Seattle University's School of Law.

"I think there will be a criminal case that will come out of this," McKay said during his meeting with Times journalists. "This is going to get worse, not better."

McKay cited ongoing investigations into the dismissals by the Senate and House Judiciary committees, and inquiries now under way by the Justice Department's inspector general and its Office of Professional Responsibility.

McKay said he believes obstruction-of-justice charges will be filed if investigators conclude that the dismissal of any of the eight prosecutors was motivated by an attempt to influence ongoing public-corruption or voter-fraud investigations.

McKay said he believes the strongest evidence of obstruction is related to the dismissals of Iglesias and Carol Lam, the former U.S. Attorney in San Diego.

 

When CREW learned about the phone call Senator Domenici made to US Attorney David Iglesias about a pending case, we asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate.  Now, based on a Senate procedural vote, it appears that at least a "preliminary inquiry" may be under way.  Think Progress had the report last night via The Politico:

The Senate just adopted a resolution (S. Res. 153) stating that "for matters before the Select Committee on Ethics involving the preliminary inquiry arising in connection with alleged communications by persons within the committee's jurisdiction with and concerning David C. Iglesias, then United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, and the subsequent action by the committee with respect to that matter, if any, the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Salazar) shall be replaced by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Brown)."

The passage of the resolution confirms that Domenici is being scrutinized by the Ethics Committee over a phone call he made to Iglesias, prior to the November election, inquiring whether Iglesias was going to indict some New Mexico Democrats. Up until this point, the Ethics Committee has refused to state whether it is actually investigating Domenici.

Domenici has denied any wrongdoing in the matter, but he complained personally to President Bush about Iglesias, and Iglesias was removed from his post on Dec. 7. Iglesias told congressional investigators that he received calls on the issue from both Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.).

Newsweek reveals yet another legal problem for the Attorney General.  The firing of David Iglesias may have amount to discrimination against him for his military service.  And, that's based on the DOJ's own explanation for the firing: 

But Iglesias’s military service in support of what the Pentagon likes to call the Global War on Terror (GWOT) apparently didn’t go down well with his superiors at the Justice Department. Recently released documents show that one reason aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited in justifying the decision to fire Iglesias as U.S attorney late last year was that he was an “absentee landlord” who was spending too much time away from the office.

That explanation may create new legal problems for Gonzales and Justice. Iglesias confirmed to NEWSWEEK that he was recently questioned by lawyers for the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency, to determine if his dismissal was a violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), a federal law that prohibits job discrimination against members of the U.S. military.

At the encouragement of Office of Special Counsel director Scott Bloch and his deputies, Iglesias said he is this week filing a formal legal complaint with OSC against the Justice Department over his dismissal on this and other grounds.

The Associated Press takes a look at the ethics controversy swirling around Senator Pete Domenici: 

Revelations that Domenici phoned one of the ousted U.S. attorneys and complained to President Bush and the Justice Department about him helped touch off a larger congressional investigation into the firings, which has embarrassed the administration, threatened the job of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and sparked a showdown between the White House and Congress over whether Bush's aides should have to testify.

Domenici, who faces re-election next fall, is dealing with troubling consequences of his own.

He's under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee after a watchdog group accused him of trying to pressure David Iglesias, then the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque, N.M., to rush a corruption probe against Democrats in an effort to sway the 2006 elections.

This analysis from a New Mexico political scientist says a lot about the state of ethics on Capitol Hill last year:

Garcia said some believe the senator "maybe got a little careless," after several years of Republican domination of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

"A little careless"?  Or interfering with an ongoing prosecution?  At least in the US Senate, an ethics investigation is underway.  

The fired US Attorney from New Mexico wrote an op-ed that appeared in today's New York Times.  One more time, he notes the political pressure applied by members of Congress about pending cases:

Politics entered my life with two phone calls that I received last fall, just before the November election. One came from Representative Heather Wilson and the other from Senator Domenici, both Republicans from my state, New Mexico.

Ms. Wilson asked me about sealed indictments pertaining to a politically charged corruption case widely reported in the news media involving local Democrats. Her question instantly put me on guard. Prosecutors may not legally talk about indictments, so I was evasive. Shortly after speaking to Ms. Wilson, I received a call from Senator Domenici at my home. The senator wanted to know whether I was going to file corruption charges — the cases Ms. Wilson had been asking about — before November. When I told him that I didn’t think so, he said, “I am very sorry to hear that,” and the line went dead.

A few weeks after those phone calls, my name was added to a list of United States attorneys who would be asked to resign — even though I had excellent office evaluations, the biggest political corruption prosecutions in New Mexico history, a record number of overall prosecutions and a 95 percent conviction rate. (In one of the documents released this week, I was deemed a “diverse up and comer” in 2004. Two years later I was asked to resign with no reasons given.)

One more time, CREW asks why no one in the United States House of Representatives has filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Wilson.

New Mexico's U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was asked to teach other Justice Department prosecutors about voter fraud a year before he was fired.  Yet, he was fired for not doing enough about voter fraud.  Someone is not telling the truth in this case.  We already know that two members of the New Mexico Congressional Delegation called Mr. Iglesias about a pending voter fraud case.  For that reason, CREW has already asked for ethics investigations of Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Heather Wilson.  Someone has to get to the bottom of this scandal:

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.

The fact that Justice officials held out Iglesias to his colleagues as an exemplar of good work on voter fraud conflicts with an explanation offered last week by a senior aide to President Bush that eight U.S. attorneys had been removed in part because of complaints that some had been lax in pursuing election fraud. Bush told Gonzales last fall that he was aware of such complaints, said Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, who cited New Mexico as one of three states in which the complaints had arisen.

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) cited suspected voter fraud in complaints about Iglesias to the Justice Department, officials have said.

What happened to change the vaunted status of David Iglesias from expert on voter fraud to pariah?   Domenici and Wilson have some explaining to do.