Jason Leopold interviews fired New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias

An Interview With David Iglesias
By Jason Leopold
Wednesday 30 May 2007 Last week, a day after Monica Goodling testified before Congress about her role in the US attorney scandal, I sat down for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with David Iglesias to discuss the implications of that testimony. Iglesias, the former US attorney for New Mexico, was one of eight US attorneys fired in December for reasons that appear to have been motivated by partisan politics. Goodling is the former White House liaison for the Justice Department. Iglesias discussed Goodling's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, and how what she had told lawmakers about the scandal might lead to a criminal investigation against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. Goodling had accused both men of misleading Congress during their testimonies earlier this year. Iglesias told me the Congressional investigations might lead to a criminal probe that could net Gonzales and McNulty on perjury and/or obstruction of justice charges. McNulty has announced that he will resign later this summer. Iglesias told me that, while we still do not know how he and his colleagues were placed on the termination list, he does believe a "smoking gun" exists that will lead directly to Karl Rove and blow the scandal wide open. "I believe somewhere on an RNC computer - on some server somewhere - there's an email from Karl Rove stating why we need to be axed," Iglesias told me in an hour-long interview. Iglesias said Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and perhaps other officials are likely responsible for placing his name and the names of his colleagues on a list of US attorneys to be fired, because he had refused to launch federal investigations and prosecute individuals purely for partisan reasons. "If the Justice Department didn't have anything to do with placing presidential appointees such as me and my colleagues on a list to be terminated, the only other possible place would be the White House," Iglesias said. "Harriet Miers, Karl Rove or some of their underlings." Iglesias also told me that, beginning in 2005, his office had come under pressure when a close confidant of Karl Rove had alleged there was widespread voter fraud in New Mexico. Iglesias said he had investigated those allegations tirelessly and found zero evidence to back them up. He added that, based on evidence that had surfaced thus far and "Karl Rove's obsession with voter fraud issues throughout the country," he now believes GOP operatives had wanted him to go after Democratic-funded organizations in an attempt to swing the 2006 midterm elections to Republicans.

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