Oh, You Want “Non-Partisan” Prosecutors?

It’s just like old times. The Justice Department turned over an additional 40 pages of documents related to the U.S. attorney purge to Congress today. You can see them here. Please let us know in the comments what you find.

Here’s our favorite of the lot.

In late December of last year, Sen. Pete Domenici’s (R-NM) chief of staff Steve Bell called to speak with William Moschella, a senior Justice Department official, and made a follow-up call to the White House. Domenici, remember, had been frustrated that U.S. Attorney David Iglesias failed to indict a prominent state Democrat before the 2006 election on corruption charges. And after Iglesias was fired, Domenici apparently wanted to make sure that he wasn’t canned in vain.

Here’s what a White House aide wrote to Moschella about her conversation with Bell two weeks after Iglesias was fired:

[Bell] mentioned he had chatted with you today about his request for a non-partisan team that specializes in corruption to be sent down to NM.

I just wanted to circle up with you and see if you had any thoughts about it.

You might think that it goes without saying that a team of Justice Department prosecutors would be “non-partisan,” but apparently in this administration, it needs saying.

There hasn’t been much ambiguity that Domenici wanted Iglesias fired because he failed to speedily indict and convict key Democrats. Both Gonzales and Domenici have tried to cast the issue as a broader preoccupation with public corruption cases or white-collar cases — but of course no other cases besides two prosecutions of state Democrats seem to have been at issue. So it shouldn’t be surprising that Domenici moved shortly after Iglesias’ firing to request that the White House ensure the U.S. attorney’s office in New Mexico be beefed up with a “non-partisan team” (ahem) that “specializes in corruption.”