It's been a long and tiring road for the eight US attorneys fired last year for political reasons. Alberto Gonzales announcing his resignation yesterday, news outlets across the country called up the former prosecutors at the center of the scandal to find out what they were thinking.
Inside you'll find a sampling of their comments. Needless to say, they don't go easy on the soon-to-be Former Attorney General.
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.
David Iglesias, one of the fired US attorneys, has been asked to appear before the House Ethics Committee to answer questions about the phone call he received from Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) about an investigation he was conducting.
Iglesias has stated before that he received calls from Wilson and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) urging him to bring indictments in a case involving state Democrats. He declined to do so, and believes that's how his name ended up on the list of US attorneys to be fired. The House Ethics Committee has already launched an investigation into Domenici's call.
Wow. David Iglesias, the former US Attorney for New Mexico until forced out of office, takes aim at his former boss, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times. He doesn't hold back, and his words show just what the politicization of the justice system has cost in terms of integrity and honor.
WHAT HAPPENS in a presidential administration when loyalty, to borrow a phrase from "Star Trek," becomes the "prime directive"? What happens when its all-encompassing fog obscures all other values -- such as fealty to the Constitution, the rule of law or simple humanity?...Simple notions like right and wrong are, in their eyes, matters of allegiance, not conscience....
...All federal prosecutors take a public oath when they assume office. I personally swore in about 30 new federal prosecutors during my tenure as U.S. attorney for New Mexico. The oath is to the U.S. Constitution, not to the president or his Cabinet.
He makes the excellent point that loyality "is a virtue with limits." We just have to look to the Watergate scandal, where several staffers carried their loyalty to the president all the way to prison.
But while the above words hit hard on the costs of the actions that precipitated this scandal, it's Iglesias' words of rebuke for Gonzales himself that I find most impactful (emphasis mine).
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