"Even the President Got Involved": Sordid New Revelations About the U.S. Attorney Firings

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted October 2, 2008.

Amy Goodman: Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor to continue the probe into whether political misconduct led to the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. The appointment came at the request of a lengthy Justice Department investigation that released its report Monday. Investigators singled out Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for his conduct in the firings, accusing of him of "abdicating" his responsibility and questioning his faulty and evasive public statements.

The report concludes political pressure was the key factor behind the firing of New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and says political pressure played a part in the dismissal of at least two others: Todd Graves of Missouri, Bud Cummins of Arkansas.

Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy of Connecticut will head the probe. Her appointment has raised hopes she'll have more leeway as a special prosecutor to compel the Bush administration to hand over key documents it refused to give Justice Department investigators. The firing of the U.S. attorneys will likely be remembered as one of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration Justice Department.

Well, shortly after investigators released their report, I spoke to investigative journalist Murray Waas on the phone at his home in Washington, D.C. He has covered the U.S. attorney firings extensively for the National Journal.

Murray Waas: Well, the most interesting thing about it, or what I thought was extraordinary, is that the report says that they couldn't get to the bottom of a lot of what happened with the firing of the U.S. attorneys, because there is a wholesale lack of cooperation by senior White House officials. Karl Rove refused to cooperate with the investigation, give them an interview. Harriet Miers, who was the White House counsel at the time and an architect of this, refused to be interviewed. Two deputy White House counsel declined to be interviewed.

The White House refused to give over documents. They refused to give over emails. To show you the absurdity, some of the emails and documents that they've refused to give to their own Justice Department, I published them in a story. Somebody in the administration leaked them to me. And so, they're a matter of public record.

And so, essentially, you have one part of the government, the White House, refusing to cooperate and assist the Justice Department in a very important oversight function. And, you know, I would add that the lack of cooperation, the refusal to talk to investigators, the refusal to turn over documents, is virtually unprecedented.

AG: And yet, the report was scathing. Talk about what they did find.

MW: Well, the report did find that the firings -- no surprises for those who have followed this or most of your listeners -- but the firings were politically motivated. The U.S. attorneys were fired to make room for people who were more ideologically or politically attuned to the White House.

A lot of it had apparently to do with the voter fraud agenda, where some Republicans, like Karl Rove, thought that they were losing because of reported voter fraud by constituency groups associated with Democrats. These U.S. attorneys actually investigated these claims by the White House, but just couldn't bring cases, and they couldn't find any evidence of this. And so, again and again, Karl Rove, people at the White House pressed for the removal of specific U.S. attorneys.

And the U.S. attorneys who they did remove -- one of the things getting lost in the coverage today is that these were the best and the brightest of our public servants. These were considered the cream of the crop and some of the finest U.S. attorneys we've had in a generation.

AG: Among the most troubling allegations in the report was the firing of the U.S. attorney of New Mexico, who has really spoken out since, actually written a book, David Iglesias. And he talked on Democracy Now!, as well as other places, about the pressure he felt, which he felt was inappropriate, on him from both Senator Pete Domenici, as well as Congress member, who is now running for senator, Heather Wilson.

MW: Well, what we found out in the report today is that after Senator Domenici made these inappropriate phone calls, asked for information about investigations, tried to press Iglesias to bring an indictment before an election to help a Republican get elected, that Domenici was then lobbying and speaking with political appointees and White House folks to get Iglesias fired. In other words, the U.S. attorney wasn't doing what he wanted, so the senator then simply went to get the guy fired, and nobody questioned the propriety of that or the intrusion of politics into the process.

AG: The removal of the Missouri U.S. attorney, Todd Graves, went from Senator Kit Bond right through to the White House?

MW: Right. I mean, interestingly, Todd Graves, who I know and like, is a conservative Republican, was a Bush supporter, an exceptional U.S. attorney, not as well-known as some of the others because he kept quiet about his firing 'until the very end. But a Republican senator of his own party didn't like him, because he had a feud with his brother or for some other obscure reasons, so the senator -- once again, you just have a senator saying, "I want a different U.S. attorney," and they get rid of Todd Graves.

See more stories tagged with: dick cheney, voter fraud, u.s. attorneys, alberto gonzales, todd graves, james comey, warrantless wiretapping, john ashcroft, pete domenici, nora dannehy, bud cummins, david iglesias, andrew card

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

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