Who's Who in the US Attorney Scandal: David Iglesias
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Tue Aug 21, 2007 at 12:59:09 PM EST
David Iglesias
Meet David Iglesias:
David Iglesias was appointed by the President on August 2, 2001, to be the US Attorney for the District of New Mexico. Prior to his appointment, Iglesias had a successful legal career as General Counsel to the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department (1998 - 2001), Chief Counsel to the New Mexico Risk Management Legal Office (1995 to 1998), and as an Assistant City Attorney for the City of Albuquerque (1991 - 1994) and an Assistant Attorney General in the New Mexico Attorney General's Office.
Iglesias performed his US Attorney duties to great satisfaction, according to his performance reviews, until 2005, when the Chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, Allen Weh, began pressuring him to bring voter fraud indictments against Democrats; Iglesias did not feel the case was strong enough, and declined to do so. The pressure was ratcheted up in the fall of 2006, when Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) each called Iglesias to pressure him to bring indictments against Democrats before the November elections. He did not do so, and on December 7, 2006, he was dismissed.
The Justice Department and the White House have tried to justify Iglesias' dismissal with a variety of excuses. They said he was fired because of his handling of voter fraud cases, yet Iglesias had been heralded before as an expert in that field, and in fact was asked to be a trainer for other prosecutors on the subject. They then offered absenteeism as a reason, saying that he had missed work often; however, these absences were in accordance with Iglesias' service as a Commander in the US Navy Reserves JAG Corps. US law states that he cannot be fired because of his reserve service.
David Iglesias has fought back against administration allegations that he was fired because of poor performance, and his years of positive performance reviews back him up. Since his dismissal he has written newspaper op-eds and appeared on TV news shows, in addition to his testimony before Congress.
Read CommonBlog posts about David Iglesias here.
Read op-ed articles by David Iglesias here and here.
Read David Iglesias' Senate testimony here, and watch it here.
Read David Iglesias' House testimony here, and watch it here.
Tags: David Iglesias, Alberto Gonzales, US Attorneys, Ethics in Government, Heather Wilson, Pete Domenici (all tags)
You are not logged in.
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account just by filling out the form below. It's quick and free.
