Running out of time to 
come clean, Rep. Heather Wilson ‘fesses up.
But Wilson’s explanation turns out to be even more comical than Sen. Domenici’s.
Wilson released a statement to the Washington Post in which she says: “I did not ask about the timing of any indictments and I did not tell Mr. Iglesias what course of action I thought he should take or pressure him in any way. The conversation was brief and professional.”
We pick up the story from the Post …
Wilson said in her statement that many of her constituents had complained about “the slow pace of federal prosecutions” in corruption cases and said she was told by one unidentified constituent that “Iglesias was intentionally delaying corruption investigations.”
Wilson also said she was trying to help Iglesias: “If the purpose of my call has somehow been misperceived, I am sorry for any confusion. I thought it was important for Mr. Iglesias to receive this information and, if necessary, have the opportunity to clear his name.”
Wilson said Iglesias’s dismissal occurred “without input from me.” Justice officials said they are not aware of any contacts by Wilson about Iglesias. But they said Sunday that Domenici complained to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales three times in 2005 and 2006 and spoke to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty in the first week of October 2006.
Now, let’s be honest. This is so risible as to almost be sad.
Consider what Wilson is asking us to believe: she says she didn’t ask Iglesias about the timing of the expected indictment. Nor did she tell him “course of action” she should take. She called because so many of her constituents had complained that this Republican US Attorney, appointed by President Bush, wasn’t moving quickly enough in his corruption investigation of a prominent New Mexico Democrat. Indeed, one unidentified constituent said Iglesias was intentionally bottling up the investigation. And Wilson called to give him the chance to “clear his name.”
Imagine Iglesias not understanding that in placing this call Wilson was just looking out for his own good?
Enough. Wilson would have done better to follow the Domenici route and just pretended she was making an informational call. After reading this transparently bogus line from Wilson this is the first moment when I think there’s a decent chance there will be a special election some time over the next twelve months in the first district of New Mexico. Anyone who reads even Wilson’s defense knows that she did precisely what Iglesias said she did: muscled a US Attorney to issue an indictment two weeks prior to election day because she believed it would help her save her seat.
Again, even going by Wilson’s account of what happened, there’s really no other reasonable explanation.
More from McClatchy …
A high-ranking Justice Department official told one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration that if any of them continued to criticize the administration for their ousters, previously undisclosed details about the reasons they were fired might be released, two of the ousted prosecutors told McClatchy Newspapers.
While the U.S. attorney who got the call regarded the tone of the conversation as congenial, not intimidating, the prosecutor nonetheless passed the message on to five other fired U.S. attorneys. One of them interpreted the reported comments by Michael Elston, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, as a threat.
Justice Department officials denied that the conversation with the U.S. attorney ever took place, and Elston said he called several of the fired U.S. attorneys but never made any such comments.
I noted below that Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) now says that in response to complaints from constituents about US Attorney Iglesias’s slow rate of indictments on corruption investigations, she called him two weeks before election day to allow him to clear his name.
But let’s back up for a moment to look at the story that is emerging.
In his statement yesterday, Sen. Domenici attempted to paint a picture of rising frustration with Iglesias’s lackluster performance going back over several years — particularly tied to his inability “to move more quickly on cases” even after Domenici had made sure to make more resources available to his office.
As we noted yesterday, Iglesias’s DOJ performance reviews show no evidence of this. And federal judiciary statistics show just the opposite.
But late this afternoon we looked a bit 
further. Domenici claims he and his office had reacted to “public accounts” of Iglesias’s inability to move cases quickly enough. So we decided to look back through published articles to see whether there was really anything in the public record to substantiate Domenici’s claims.
And what did we find? Just one article.
And it’s very revealing.
It’s from the December 19th, 2006 edition of the Albuquerque Journal, the article announcing Iglesias’s resignation.
After noting Iglesias’s resignation the articles continues …
Rumors that Iglesias was in trouble with his superiors at the Department of Justice have been circulating for months.
The chief criticism of Iglesias has been that he had not provided enough resources for public corruption investigations. Some of that criticism has come from the political arena and some from the FBI, which has made political corruption its No. 2 priority behind terrorism.
Iglesias’ defenders, in private conversations, argued that the federal prosecutors are overwhelmed with immigration and narcotics cases because of the state’s southern border with Mexico.
The article then describes the guilty plea Iglesias got from former state Treasurer Robert Vigil, a Democrat, and then continues with this …
Iglesias’ resignation also comes while a second corruption case is in the law enforcement pipeline. That case could be as explosive as the Treasurer’s Office investigation.
The FBI has been investigating a kickback scheme centered on the construction of the multimillion-dollar state and metro courthouses Downtown.
Last month, Iglesias assigned additional prosecutors to that investigation, which had been in the works since September 2005. The investigation became public last spring when FBI agents began reviewing construction records at the Metropolitan Courthouse.
The pace of that investigation has apparently been a point of contention between investigators and Iglesias’ office.
The FBI confirmed in July that it had sent a case involving the courthouses to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Since then, indictments have been expected or rumored on a monthly basis.
This is the case that the whole scandal turns on, the one against former State Senator Manny Aragon.
And here the full picture starts to come into focus.
There’s no evidence that Iglesias wasn’t moving quickly enough through his office’s caseload, as Sen. Domenici claimed. But well before any of this story became radioactive national news, we have this press account of rumors that Iglesias was in trouble with the folks at Main Justice over not “providing enough resources for public corruption investigations.”
Some of the criticism came from the “political arena” and some from the FBI.
So it seems that there were complaints about Iglesias. But the evidence at hand suggests they all stemmed from claims he wasn’t putting enough muscle into investigating corruption cases. Indeed, Rep. Wilson (R-NM) now claims that many of her constituents had complained about “the slow pace of federal prosecutions” in corruption cases.
As we’ve seen, both the major public corruption cases Iglesias pursued were of Democrats. And the one all the fuss was about last year was the investigation of Manny Aragon. Now, indulge me for a moment. When not enough drug dealers are getting put away people complain. When too few illegals are getting rousted people may complain. But there’s a particular group of people who complain when an indictment of a Democratic isn’t coming down quickly enough: they’re called partisan Republicans. And yes, same thing if the shoe were on the other foot.
The December 19th report says that FBI investigators weren’t happy either. And I’ll be curious to hear more about that. You only need to watch a few TV cop shows to know that investigators are often out in front of prosecutors in the course of a criminal investigation. And any reporter will tell you that the way investigators’ complaints often surface is by way of political partisans. But however that may be, it’s the prosecutors job to decide if and when to indict.
So, as I said, the picture starts to come into focus and we see that the defense proferred by Wilson and Domenici is not so different from the accusation.
Wilson and Domenici were hearing from Republican supporters that Iglesias was taking too long dropping that indictment on Democrat Manny Aragon — it was commonly believed last fall that Wilson’s political future depended on it. Wilson and Domenici weren’t too happy about it either since Wilson was banking on an indictment before the election to save her seat. According to the Albuquerque Journal, Iglesias’s bosses in Washington weren’t happy with how long it was taking either. So within two to three weeks of the election both Wilson and then Domenici call Iglesias to ask what the delay is. He gives them both the cold shoulder. On election day Wilson wins reelection by fewer than one thousand votes. Five weeks after that, Iglesias gets the call from Michael Battle telling him he’s fired.
Pretty bad when you consider that that’s not the accusation but the defense.
It just gets better.
The administration’s only leg to stand on in firing Cunningham prosecutor Carol Lam has been that she’d been on the receiving end of complaints from hapless California Congressman Darrell Issa (R). Now he’s going to be testifying at tomorrow’s hearing too.
Here’s a press release up at his website announcing his appearances and cataloguing Lam’s alleged history of prosecutorial sins that led him to drive her from office.
He doesn’t getting around to mention her positive performance review.
This is the joker the White House is going to bat with.
TPM Reader BS isn’t buying it …
If I read Darrel Issaâs press release correctly, Carole Lam gets fired because sheâs not prosecuting enough border crime, even though sheâs prosecuting a major Congressional and DoD corruption case; Dave Iglesias gets fired because heâs prosecuting too much border crime, and not enough local corruption.
So whereâs the happy median for the Bush Administration? If Lam filed as many border crime cases as Iglesias, and Iglesias as many corruption cases?
Even their cover stories have holes the size of the Pentagon in themâ¦
TPM Reader DS sees the same problem …
Do I have this straight? Iglesias failed at his job because he devoted too many resources to border crimes and not enough to public corruption. Lam failed at her job because she devoted too many resources to public corruption cases and not enough to border crimes.
The attorneys who didn’t get fired must have threaded a pretty tight needle.
Sen. Cornyn (R-TX) to be a no-show at tomorrow’s fired US attorney hearings.
Another prosecutor forced out in 2005 for investigating a Republican?
The former federal prosecutor in Maryland said Monday that he was forced out in early 2005 because of political pressure stemming from public corruption investigations involving associates of the stateâs governor, a Republican.
âThere was direct pressure not to pursue these investigations,â said the former prosecutor, Thomas M. DiBiagio. âThe practical impact was to intimidate my office and shut down the investigations.â
Mr. DiBiagio, a controversial figure who clashed with a number of Maryland politicians, had never publicly discussed the reasons behind his departure. But he agreed to an interview with The New York Times because he said he was concerned about what he saw as similarities with the recent firings of eight United States attorneys.
Shocked?
It was a busy night in the canned US attorney scandal. You can see our main posts on the latest on Rep. Wilson here and the latest on Sen. Domenici here.
Today’s Must Read: what the purged prosecutor scandal has taught Alberto Gonzales.
The congressional hearings have begun.
We’ll be posting running updates at TPMmuckraker.
Update: CREW has requested an ethics investigation of Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM).