Updated: Gonzales, Bush & the US Attorneys, the backstory [VIDEO x 2]

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 2:13 PM on March 14, 2007.

Salon Columnist Joe Conason, author of It Can Happen Here, explains the background and importance of the White House-initiated politically-motivated firing of US Attorneys with Amy Goodman. This is Part 1...

AMY GOODMAN: Calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign are increasing as more details emerge on how the Justice Department worked with the White House to fire eight US attorneys. Gonzales acknowledged Tuesday mistakes had been made, but refused to step down.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers said they want to question White House adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. The House Judiciary Committee released a series of emails and documents that show the White House initiated the process more than two years ago that led to the dismissals. The decisions were made in part on whether the prosecutors "exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general."

In one case, the Attorney General's chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson -- who resigned on Monday -- urged the White House counsel's office to call him regarding "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam." Carol Lam was the U.S. Attorney in Southern California who was leading the investigation of former Republican Congressmember Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who went to jail. Sampson's email came on May 11, 2006, the same day the Los Angeles Times reported that Lam's investigation was expanding to include another California Republican, Congressmember Jerry Lewis. Carol Lam later became one of the eight prosecutors fired.

In a few minutes, we will speak with journalist Joe Conason. He’s been...

... following the story closely. But first, we turn to the testimony of David Iglesias. He was dismissed as US attorney in New Mexico. He testified before the Senate last week. He was questioned by Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

DAVID IGLESIAS: I was at home. This was the only time I'd ever received a call from any member of Congress while at home during my tenure as United States attorney for New Mexico. Mr. Bell called me. I was in my bedroom. My wife was nearby. And he indicated that the senator wanted to speak with me. He indicated that there were some complaints by some citizens, so I said, "OK." And he says, "Here's the senator." So he handed the phone over, and I recognized the voice as being Senator Pete Domenici.

And he wanted to ask me about the corruption matters or the corruption cases that had been widely reported in the local media. I said, "Alright." And he said, "Are these going to be filed before November?" And I said I didn't think so. And to which he replied, "I'm very sorry to hear that." And then the line went dead.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: So, in other words, he hung up on you?

DAVID IGLESIAS: That's how I took that. Yes, sir.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: And you didn't say goodbye or anything like that?

DAVID IGLESIAS: No, sir.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Now did you take that as a sign of his unhappiness with your decision?

DAVID IGLESIAS: I felt sick afterward. So I felt he was upset that -- at hearing the answer that he received.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Right. And so, is it fair to say that you felt pressured to hurry subsequent cases and prosecutions as a result of the call?

DAVID IGLESIAS: Yes, sir. I did. I felt leaned on. I felt pressured to get these matters moving.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: And as you say, it was unusual for you to receive a call from a senator at home while you were the US attorney.

DAVID IGLESIAS: Unprecedented. It had never happened.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: OK. How long after that contact with Senator Domenici were you fired?

DAVID IGLESIAS: Approximately six weeks later, five weeks later, thereabouts.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Thank you. Now, let's go on to the call of Heather Wilson. Did the call with Congresswoman Wilson occur before or after your conversation with Senator Domenici?

DAVID IGLESIAS: The call from Congresswoman Wilson was approximately two weeks prior to the call from Senator Domenici.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: You remember the day or date of that one?

DAVID IGLESIAS: It was on or about the 16th of October.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Got it. And please describe for the committee, as best you can, your entire recollection of that communication. Tell us what Congresswoman Wilson said, and what you said.

DAVID IGLESIAS: That was also a very brief conversation. She mentioned -- well, I mentioned I was just coming into Washington, D.C., and she joked, "Well I'm sorry to hear that." She then asked me about -- she'd been hearing about sealed indictments, and she said, "What can you tell me about sealed indictments?"

The second she said any question about sealed indictments, red flags went up in my head, because, as you know, we cannot talk about indictments until they're made public. In general, we specifically cannot talk about a sealed indictment. It's like calling up a scientist at Sandia laboratories and asking them to -- let's talk about those secret codes, those launch codes. So I was evasive and nonresponsive to her questions. I said, "Well, we sometimes do sealed indictments for national security cases; sometimes we have to do them for juvenile cases." And she was not happy with that answer. And then she said, "Well, I guess I'll have to take your word for it." And I said -- I don't think I responded -- "Goodbye," and that was the substance of that conversation.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Did you feel pressured during that call?

DAVID IGLESIAS: Yes, sir. I did.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: OK. Did you feel as sick as you did after the second call?

DAVID IGLESIAS: Not as sick, because I didn't think there would be any more communications.

AMY GOODMAN: That was former US attorney, David Iglesias, testifying last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was questioned by Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer.

The political journalist Joe Conason joins me now in our firehouse studio, national correspondent for the New York Observer, columnist for salon.com. He is also director of the investigative unit at the Nation Institute. He has been following this story closely and has a new book, which is called It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush. Welcome to Democracy Now!

JOE CONASON: Good to be with you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you here, Joe. Talk about the significance of this case, the whole US attorney series of firings.

JOE CONASON: Well, the way these firings were handled and the apparent purpose of them, which is partisan and political so far, as far as we can tell, is really a violation of traditional protections of federal law enforcement from partisan control. My view is that partisan control of these functions, partisan control of the prosecutorial process, is the sign of life in a banana republic, as you might say, a type of government we have been trying to escape in this country for hundreds of years, where the sovereign, the executive, misuses or can misuse prosecutorial action against political enemies.

These eight attorneys, in different ways, appear to have been -- had their loyalty questioned to the President, which, by the way, is not where their loyalty is supposed to go anyway -- their loyalty is to the Constitution -- because either they were pursuing Republicans or not pursuing Democrats as the President wished. This is why the involvement in this matter of the President's political adviser Karl Rove is of such great interest to the Congress now. They want to understand why the White House counsel Harriet Miers and Karl Rove got so involved in apparently helping to choose which US attorneys, who are very, very powerful officials in the justice system, would be removed. And --

AMY GOODMAN: Now, first, they were going to fire all of them, right? All the US attorneys, they claim.

JOE CONASON: Well, they said they were going to, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And then whittled it down to eight.

JOE CONASON: Well, firing all of them, I guess, would have had the benefit of making it more confusing as to the reason why. But somebody in the system decided that would be much too disruptive to the entire justice system to fire them all in the middle of the President’s term.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what US attorneys do. Why are they so significant?

JOE CONASON: US attorneys make the decisions about who to prosecute in federal criminal cases every day. They are the frontline. There are cases that get bumped up to what’s called main justice in Washington, where various assistants to the Attorney General help to make these decisions. For instance, tradition was for a long time that if you were going to prosecute a journalist for refusing to testify, that was a decision that had to be made by the Attorney General. But usual cases -- drug cases, immigration cases, corruption cases, you know, federal bank robbery cases, those kinds -- all those kinds of cases are handled by the US attorney on the federal district level in each state, and they have a tremendous amount of power, which is supposed to be exercised independently. They are confirmed by the Senate. And they do serve at the pleasure of the President, but there are supposed to be checks and balances that ensure their independence.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Joe Conason. He is director of the investigative unit at the Nation Institute and author of a new book, It Can Happen Here. We'll be back with him in a minute.

Tagged as: scandal, bush, prosecutors, gonsales

Evan Derkacz is an AlterNet editor. He writes and edits PEEK, the blog of blogs.