Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to

From The Los Angeles Times:

Weeks before the 2006 midterm election, then-New Mexico U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias was invited to dine with a well-connected Republican lawyer in Albuquerque [Pat Rogers] who had been after him for years to prosecute allegations of voter fraud….

Rogers, reached by telephone in Albuquerque, recalled a brief discussion of voter fraud at the lunch, but he challenged much of Iglesias’ account.

Rogers said the primary purpose of the gathering was to discuss the U.S. attorney’s failure to move on corruption cases, not voter fraud. Rogers also said that it was he who invited the other employee of the office to attend and that he was presenting them with concerns of others in law enforcement, including concerns raised in a newspaper article that described how the FBI had finished its work on a public corruption matter and turned it over to the U.S. attorney.

That’s one hell of an alibi.

Remember that the “public corruption matter” Rogers is referring to here is the investigation of a prominent New Mexico Democrat — the investigation that Republicans hoped would deliver an indictment before the election. And that’s the same investigation that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) had called Iglesias about that same month.

So what Rogers is saying is that he wasn’t meeting with Iglesias to pressure him to indict Democrats on voter fraud charges. No! He was meeting with Iglesias to pressure him to indict a Democrat on corruption charges.

It’s the whole story of Iglesias’ firing. It’s not clear if the lack of voter fraud indictments, Republican disappointment at the pace of his public corruption investigations, or both led to his firing. But all the evidence shows that one or both of them did. And it all amounts to the same thing: Iglesias was canned for not indicting Democrats.