Iglesiasgate: Muckraker Takes Domenici To School

Throughout yesterday's pathetic attempt to get ahead of the story, Sen. Pete Domenici swore up and down that his problem with former US Attorney David Iglesias was that he wasn't moving quickly enough to lighten the caseload. Whether it was a lack of resources or just slowness and perceived incompetence on the part of Iglesias, this was put forth as the reason Domenici asked that Iglesias be replaced.

Well, TPM Muckraker ran the numbers, and let's just sy that Domenici is full of it.

But the statistics kept by the Federal Judiciary don't reflect an inability for Iglesias' office to move more quickly on cases -- in fact, quite the opposite. In 2001, when Iglesias took over, the data (pdf) shows a median of 4.6 months for a criminal case in the New Mexico office to move from filing to disposition (dismissal, guilty plea, or trial). In 2005, that time had dwindled to 3.7 months.

And that's a time when Iglesias' office was increasingly snowed under by more cases. His office opened 1,548 criminal cases in 2001; in 2005, the office opened 2,915.

So Iglesias' office was opening more cases and handling them faster than his predecessor. Maybe that's why he received a positive performance evaluation?

The problem was that Iglesias had more cases to handle, nearly double that of his predecessor. So resources appear to have been the problem. The DoJ sets budgets for the US Attorneys in the field. Iglesias could not have just hired more people to decrease the caseload.

The other problem with Iglesias, according to Domenici, was that he insufficiently cracked down on illegal immigration cases. Except he was further right on the issue than the Bush Administration and supported the House bill's provisions on alien smuggling and trafficking.

The bill passed by the House would address these gaps and would give federal prosecutors on the southwest border many desperately needed tools to take down smuggling rings and obtain justice for the victims. In particular, the bill strengthens the penalties for alien smugglers, especially those who put immigrants at risk of death or serious bodily injury. It extends the arm of the law to better reach foreign alien smuggling rings and those who help illegal aliens to cross our borders. The legislation would also impose new penalties for organized passport and immigration fraud and makes it a federal crime to defraud immigrants. These important changes will provide prosecutors additional tools to prosecute every person involved in smuggling an alien into the country or defrauding immigrants.

So he was asking the Congress to give him more leeway in prosecuting immigration cases, not backing off. And during his time in office immigration cases rose 78 percent.

Pete Domenici is peddling a story, but it's far from the truth. Tomorrow David Iglesias gets to tell his side.

UPDATE: A preview of fired US Attorney and Duke Cunningham prosecutor Carol Lam's opening statement tomorrow to the Congress:

Every United States Attorney knows that he or she is a political appointee, but also recognizes the importance of supporting and defending the Constitution in a fair and impartial manner that is devoid of politics. Prosecutorial discretion is an important part of a United States Attorney's responsibilities. The prosecution of individual cases must be based on justice, fairness, and compassion - not political ideology or partisan politics. We believed that the public we served and protected deserved nothing less.

The members of the panel regret the circumstances that have brought us here to testify today. We hope those circumstances do not in any way call into question the good work of the United States Attorneys Offices we led and the independence of the career prosecutors who staff them. And while it is never easy to leave a position one cares deeply about, we leave with no regrets, because we served well and upheld the best traditions of the Department of Justice.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Laura Rozen has an interesting story about the 9th US Attorney who left her job this year, the one who wasn't fired:

Former Los Angeles US attorney Debra Wong Yang, who had been heading up the investigation into former Appropriations committee chairman Jerry Lewis. And where did Yang go on January 1st? To the law firm representing Lewis. The fact that Yang resigned her office November 10 -- just after the elections - is interesting. It's no secret that the decision to retire and a decision informed by knowledge one is going to be dismissed are sometimes the same thing. Is Yang the exception that proves the rule, or no exception at all? Among the powerful partners at Gibson Dunn, the firm that offered Yang a golden parachute, you will remember, is Theodore Olsen, the Bush White House former solicitor general. The Lewis investigation is of course the big enchilada, the one that would really hurt, and not just Lewis. Will Congress want to hear from Yang as well?