Iglesiasgate

There is the makings of a major scandal in New Mexico, something that may have national significance like no other story since perhaps the outing of Valerie Plame. It comes out of the Justice Department's purge of 7 federal prosecutors. The Bush Administration has already taken a lot of flack and received a lot of attention from the US Senate from this brazen act. But today things got a little more interesting.

David Iglesias, US Attorney for New Mexico, stepped down today, and he did not go quietly. In a bombshell article by McClatchy, Iglesias claimed that he was fired for expressly political reasons. This has been alleged in most of the other firings, but what's different here is that we have the personal involvement of members of Congress.

The controversy flared up early Wednesday afternoon after David Iglesias, the departing U.S. attorney from New Mexico, told McClatchy Newspapers that he believes he was forced out because he refused to speed up an indictment of local Democrats a month before November's congressional elections.

Iglesias said that two members of Congress called separately in mid-October to inquire about the timing of a federal probe of a kickback scheme. They appeared eager, he said, for an indictment to be issued before the elections in order to benefit the Republicans. He refused to name the members of Congress because, he said, he feared retaliation.

Two months later, on Dec. 7, Iglesias became one of six U.S. attorneys who've been ordered to step down for what administration officials have called "performance-related issues." Two other U.S. attorneys also were asked to resign.

Iglesias, however, had received a positive performance review before he was fired and said that he suspected he was forced out because he resisted the pressure and didn't indict anyone before the election.

"I believe that because I didn't play ball, so to speak, I was asked to resign," Iglesias, who stepped down Wednesday, told McClatchy.

Iglesias is being a little coy. There are only three Republican members of Congress in the New Mexico delegation; Rep, Steve Pearce, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson. One would wonder why anyone outside the state (except perhaps those involved with the Republican campaign committee) would care. Pearce has officially denied contact with Iglesias; Domenici and Wilson haven't.

And there is certainly motive for Wilson. She was involved in a very difficult race in her district this past election with former state Attorney General Patricia Madrid. The allegations that Iglesias was asked to investigate and prosecute quickly involved a kickback scheme with a former state senator. Madrid spent the previous number of years in Santa Fe, and a big issue in the campaign for her was how she "ignor(ed) corruption in the state despite her being the top law enforcement official there." An indictment before Election Day would have been a crucial blow to Madrid's hopes to beat the incumbent Wilson. And it only STARTS with Wilson. As Josh Marshall writes:

If you're a nervous member of Congress in a tight election and you're pissed you can't get any action out of Iglesias, you probably don't call the DOJ. You call the White House, specifically the political office. So who at the White House got called? And what did they do?

So this involves most of the Republican New Mexico delegation in Congress, the White House's political team, and the Justice Department who eventually meted out the punishment.

This is one of those stories that is moments away from becoming a full-fledged feeding frenzy. The Senate Judiciary Committee exploded today, particularly Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Linda Sanchez, demanding more information from the DoJ and vowing to subpoena the fired US Attorneys for more information. There will be votes in the Senate and the House as early as tomorrow. You'll recall that earlier this month, deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified to Congress that the attorneys were all fired for cause. Subsequent releases of records showed that their personnel evaluations were all positive. So you can add lying to Congress to the list of charges. Along with members of Congress tampering with federal investigations.

This will be on A10 of the WaPo tomorrow. It could hit the front page within days.