"I would never, ever make a change in the United States attorney position for political reasons," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said in Senate testimony in early January. As the AG is learning if the other party wins the election, you might as well be truthful when under oath. Strange thing about the truth, it seems to dribble out.
According to an article in Salon that is exactly what they did.
In a Feb. 6 hearing, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told lawmakers, "When I hear you talk about the politicizing of the Department of Justice, it's like a knife in my heart."Knife meet heart.
According to Mark Follman at Salon:
at least three of the eight fired attorneys were told by a superior they were being forced to resign to make jobs available for other Bush appointees, according to a former senior Justice Department official knowledgeable about their cases. That stands in contradiction to administration claims that the firings were related either to job performance or policy differences. A fourth U.S. attorney was told by a top Justice Department official that the dismissal in that attorney's case was not necessarily related to job performance. Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in New Mexico -- who officially steps down from his post on Wednesday, and who says he was never told by superiors about any problems with his work -- plans to go public with documentation of the achievements of his office.
"I never received any indication at all of a problem" regarding performance or policy differences, Iglesias told Salon on Monday. "That only leaves a third option: politics."
UPDATE: By Marisa Taylor of McClatchy Newspapers is reporting that:
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.
If true Mr. Iglesias was fired for putting his duty to the United States ahead of the needs of the Republican Party. That folks is about as political as a US Attorney firing can get.
