In May, former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias explained that he met for several hours, shortly before the 2006 election, with Pat Rogers, a well-connected Republican lawyer in Albuquerque, who was after him to prosecute dubious allegations of voter fraud. Iglesias told Rogers the truth — that he’d reviewed more than 100 complaints filed by New Mexico Republicans, but found no substantial evidence of a crime.
What Iglesias didn’t know at the time was that Rogers had, before their pre-election meeting, already taken his concerns to Washington. With help from Monica Goodling, Rogers complained about Iglesias’ reluctance on voter-fraud cases directly to top Justice Department officials, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), and Karl Rove. Rogers and another Republican attorney from New Mexico, Mickey Barnett, made clear that they wanted Iglesias fired. Not long after, he was.
Today, McClatchy moves the ball forward quite a bit more. (thanks to V.S. for the tip)
A New Mexico lawyer who pressed to oust U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was an officer of a nonprofit group that aided Republican candidates in 2006 by pressing for tougher voter identification laws.
Iglesias, who was one of nine U.S. attorneys the administration fired last year, said that Albuquerque lawyer Patrick Rogers pressured him several times to bring voter fraud prosecutions where little evidence existed. Iglesias believes that he was fired in part because he failed to pursue such cases.
He described Rogers, who declined to discuss the exchanges, as “obsessed … convinced there was massive voter fraud going on in this state, and I needed to do something to stop it.”
Iglesias said he only recently learned of Rogers’ involvement as secretary of the non-profit American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund – an activist group that defended tighter voter identification requirements in court against charges that they were designed to hamper voting by poor minorities.
As Rick Hasen recently explained, that would be the “incredible, disappearing” American Center for Voting Rights.
McClatchy’s report offers several helpful details about Rogers and the broader election strategy. Take a look.
This could get ugly.
The Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the White House for information related to the U.S. Attorney purge scandal. The White House announced a few days ago that it would ignore the subpoenas. This morning on “Meet the Press,” Tim Russert asked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) what happens next.
RUSSERT: You have asked the White House and others to respond to your subpoenas. They are now invoking executive privilege, and you said this: “We will take the necessary steps to enforce our subpoenas backed by the full force of law so that Congress and the public can get to the truth behind this matter.” What does that mean, full force of the law? Is — are we headed to a constitutional crisis?
LEAHY: I would hope not. That’s why I say, they — they’ve chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation. The other administration — in fact, I’ve been here with six administrations, Democratic and Republican, they’ve always found a way to, to work out and get the information Congress is entitled to. […]
RUSSERT: Are you prepared to hold the Bush White House, the vice president, the attorney general and his office under contempt of Congress?
LEAHY: That is something that the whole Congress has to vote on. In our case, in the Senate, we’d have to vote on it; in the House, they would have to vote on it. I can’t…
RUSSERT: Would you go that far?
LEAHY: If they don’t cooperate, yes, I’d go that far. I mean, this is very important to the American people. If you’re going to have — for example, the, the bottom line on this, the U.S. attorneys investigation, is that we had people manipulation law enforcement. You — law enforcement has, can’t be partisan. Law enforcement can’t decide, “Well, we’ll arrest this person because they’re a Democrat but not this person because they’re Republican” or the other way around. And that is why I think you’ve found so many Republicans and Democrats who have been so critical and, and many of those, the most critical, are, like myself, former prosecutors.
If Congress passes a contempt-of-Congress measure, lawmakers would effectively be formally accusing the White House of a crime, which would then be referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for consideration. Russert asked Leahy this morning, “Are you sure the U.S. Attorney would prosecute?” The chairman responded, “Well, I think it’d be very difficult for him not to.” (Crooks & Liars has a video clip of the interview.)
Stay tuned.
About a week ago, TPMtv featured a revealing video montage of Rudy Giuliani going to almost comical lengths to duck the issue of Iraq. A leading presidential candidate, on the dominant issue of the day, simply doesn’t want to talk about it — and hasn’t for the last year or so.
With that in mind, I was encouraged to see a transcript the Wall Street Journal published over the weekend of a Giuliani interview with the paper’s editorial board. The WSJ’s editors, to their credit, seemed intent on getting some sense of the former mayor’s thoughts on the war. It’s a shame they came up empty.
The transcript is worth reading, if for no other reason than to enjoy the constant use of the phrase “on offense.” Giuliani demonstrated confusion about de-Baathification, repeatedly compared Iraq to New York City, and said national polls would show stronger support for the war if only pollsters would use the word “retreat” in the questions. All in all, the former mayor’s responses lacked a certain, shall we say, sophistication.
Consider this exchange:
WSJ: [Y]ou would give Petraeus all the time he needs?
Giuliani: Sure, if I thought he was right. I had a similar, on a lesser scale, issue with the police department or the fire department or whatever.
Or perhaps this illuminating question and response:
WSJ: So six months out and you’re on the campaign trail. The results of the surge are inconclusive, but Petraeus says “I can use more time” and you’re taking a beating for it, what are you going to say?
Giuliani: If I believe that General Petraeus is right, then I take the beating and you try to explain it to people. I think the American people in November 2008 are going to select the person they think is strongest to defend America against Islamic terrorism. And it is not going to just focus on — as some of the media wants it — just Iraq.
Yes, it’s that darned media’s fault Americans want presidential candidates to talk about a tragic war and how they’d handle it. If only journalists would stop asking these pesky questions, Giuliani wouldn’t have to go to such lengths to dodge them.
Larry Johnson: Not impressed by botched UK terror bombings.
Today’s Must Read: The Washington Post explores the “tranquility” of George W. Bush.
John Edwards, a distant third in this quarter’s primary fundraising, says he’s right on track for his “four-state strategy.” That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I/D-CT) explains how the surge is working miracles and the UK terror plots show we need more warrantless wiretapping in today’s Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv …
“So incompetent as to be almost laughable.” That’s how former Scotland Yard detective John O’Connor described the botched UK bombings this morning on CNN. He also noted that it’s probably wrong to refer to these guys as ‘al Qaeda’. Check it out …
Late Update: A reader at Andrew Sullivan’s site has more thoughts on the way the Brits are handling this, as opposed to the way this is getting played in the US media.
CNN: Libby loses bid to remain free on bail.
Update: And it wasn’t even close.
Budget cuts, staff shake-up for McCain campaign. Always a good sign.