White House in on the meddling with Domenici?
Look at this exchange from this morning’s gaggle at the White House (italics added) …
Question: Does the White House have a response to the revelations regarding the two members of Congress from New Mexico contacting US Attorney Iglesias?
Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino: We were aware of the Senators’ concerns. We’ve referred those to the Department of Justice, as appropriate. And one thing I’d remind everyone is, when you have political appointees, all of us that are political appointees and serve at the pleasure of the President, if an agency or department wants to make a change in a political appointee’s status, then those recommendations are run by the White House — especially at that senior level, especially. That was the case here. That’s standard operating procedure. It would have been odd if they hadn’t. We did not object to the Justice Department’s recommendations.
Question: You didn’t object to the Justice Department’s recommendations, but no recommendations originated in the Office of Counsel?
Perino: Right.
Question: Dana, does the White House think it’s proper for a Republican Senator to ask a US Attorney about an investigation of Democrats in advance of the election?
Perino: I think that’s something that the Hill’s going to talk about, and I know that there’s calls for investigations into that. I think that, from our perspective, we get complaints all the time at the White House, not just about US Attorneys, but, as you can imagine, about multitudes of things. And the standard practice is to refer those concerns or complaints to the appropriate agency.
Question: Did Domenici approach the White House on this?
Perino: I don’t know . Yes, I believe we were aware of his concerns; I don’t know the form in which that took, whether it was phone calls or personal contact.
So the White House was “aware of [Domenici’s] concerns.” And as we showed last night, it’s pretty clear that Domenici’s concerns were Iglesias’s too slow pace of indicting Democrats. So let’s hear just what Domenici said and to whom at the White House he said it.
