Problem solved: Walter Reed patients told to stop talking to the press.

The evidence builds that the administration fired a group of federal prosecutors in December just to install political loyalists in the spots.

Salon is reporting that two of the prosecutors were told as much when they asked why they were being forced out.

It’s a dirty job. But someone’s got to do it.

The San Diego US Attorney’s office has been pretty much singlehandedly cleaning up US politics over the last year and a half or so — mainly building out from the Duke Cunningham scandal but also following that trail of bread crumbs right to the heart of the CIA. Who knows whether that will continue now that the head of the office, Carol Lam, got axed for ‘performance’ issues that turned out not to exist. But the San Diego FBI office has also been a big part of the equation. And there’s so much muck out there, now the San Diego office is setting up an 800 number for people to report public corruption (the number is actually 877-662-7423).

“The battle for honest services by our public officials cannot be won if only a few people are willing to be involved,” says San Diego FBI’s chief Dan Dzwilewski. “The FBI needs the public’s help if we are going to continue to be successful in protecting citizens’ rights to honest services.”

In case you don’t remember, when news came out in January that Lam was getting canned in the midst of her continuing investigation of Wilkes and Foggo, he told the local paper, on the record, “I guarantee politics is involved.”

So this guy’s no shrinking violet.

Dan Gerstein responds: Yes, Lieberman was paying me when I published a piece in The Politico attacking his enemies. So what?

Yep, looks like there’s nothing to this US Attorney firing thing.

Paul Kiel told you yesterday about New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias who said his firing was a “political fragging” and that he was holding a press conference today.

Here’s McClatchy just out on some of what he just told them …

The U.S. attorney from New Mexico who was recently fired by the Bush administration said Wednesday that he believes he was forced out because he refused to rush an indictment in an ongoing probe of local Democrats a month before November’s Congressional elections.

David Iglesias said two members of Congress separately called in mid October to inquire about the timing of an ongoing probe of a kickback scheme and appeared eager for an indictment to be issued on the eve of 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 ordered to step down for what administration officials have termed “performance-related issues.” Two other U.S. attorneys also have been asked to resign.

Iglesias, who received a positive performance review before he was fired, said he suspected he was forced out because of his refusal to be pressured to hand down an indictment in the ongoing probe.

“I believe that because I didn’t play ball, so to speak, I was asked to resign,” said Iglesias, who officially stepped down Wednesday.

You still think Carol Lam wasn’t fired because she pushed the Duke-Wilkes-Foggo probe too far?

Update: So who were those two members of Congress? We’re trying to find out.

Later Update: Already got our first answer. Check here for more updates.

Is Hillary’s war vote and refusal to term it a mistake a big liability in a Dem primary?

Check out these poll numbers and let us know what you think.

Another flip-flop from Romney — this time on his attitude towards people of faith.

So who were those two members of Congress who called canned US Attorney David Iglesias trying to get him to indict Democrats before the November election? We’re on the phone making calls. And we’ve already got one denial.

Sen. Schumer (D-NY) calls Iglesias’s charges “extremely serious.”

So let’s review where we are. For weeks now we’ve been chronicling the story of the unprecedented firings of eight US Attorneys around the country. From the outset, the pattern of firings was highly suspicious. Attracting most notice was the fact that one of the firees was San Diego US Attorney Carol Lam who was in the midst of what is arguably one of the most important public corruption cases in American history when she got the boot.

Today, though, the other shoe dropped — possibly one of many to come. One of the fired US Attorneys, David Iglesias of New Mexico, came forward and said he believes he was fired because he didn’t play ball and rush an indictment of a New Mexico Democrat prior to the November election.

If Iglesias got canned because he wasn’t willing to tip the scales of justice in favor of the GOP, it’s awfully hard to figure that Lam wasn’t fired for what has always seemed to be the most logical reason — because she was bagging too many corrupt Republicans and getting too deep into the CIA.

Now, when Iglesias had his news conference this morning, McClatchy reports that he said that “two members of Congress separately called in mid October to inquire about the timing of an ongoing probe of a kickback scheme and appeared eager for an indictment to be issued on the eve of the elections in order to benefit the Republicans.”

Iglesias wouldn’t name those members of Congress. But we want to know who they are.

Logic suggested we contact the three Republican members of the New Mexico congressional delegation: Reps. Pearce and Wilson and Sen. Domenici. We contacted the offices of each. Pearce denied that he was a caller. Wilson and Domenici have yet to respond.

Given the connection to the election, we’ve also contacted members of the House leadership — specifically, Reps. Blunt, Boehner, Cantor, Hastert, Reynolds and Sensenbrenner. We also called Sen. Dole. So far we’ve only heard back from Cantor, who denies being a caller.

Now, to be crystal clear, no inference should be drawn from the fact that we called these members of the leadership. It could have been any Republican member of Congress. (In theory, it could be a Democrat. But in the nature of the case that doesn’t make sense.) The leadership seemed the logical place to start since they’d be most closely involved in managing the election campaign. Same with the New Mexicans — we only called them because they’re from the state in question.

Now, it’s hard for us to place a couple hundred calls. So we’re looking for your tips and leads. Do you think you know which member of Congress might have been likely to have made those calls? If you’ve got a hunch, drop us a line and let us know. We want to smoke these folks out.

Sen. Feinstein: Subpoena the US Attorneys.

Update: Sen. Schumer: because they want to talk.