Former Justice official says Iglesias did a good job

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The former No. 2 in the Justice Department said today he thought David Iglesias, former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, was a competent attorney he would not have fired.

In fact, James B. Comey told a House Judiciary subcommittee, Iglesias was a “very straight, very able” attorney, the Albuquerque Tribune is reporting.

He said he thought only one of eight U.S. attorneys fired last year was weak and should have been fired. The former deputy attorney general, who left in August 2005 to work for Lockheed Martin, said he worked with Iglesias on an initiative to target crime in violent neighborhoods, the Tribune reported.

“Albuquerque experienced a dramatic drop in homicides in particular and shootings, as I recall, in their most problem-plagued neighborhoods as a result of that program,” Comey said.

Iglesias alleges he was fired because he refused pressure from New Mexico Republicans to issue unwarranted voter-fraud indictments and from U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson to speed indictments in a public corruption probe in time to sway voters in the November 2006 election.

Many Republicans say there was voter fraud, and admit freely that Iglesias’ failure to prosecute it was one of their complaints.

Comey’s comments don’t shed a lot of light on the situation, but are noteworthy. It’s already become clear that many in the Justice Department believed Iglesias was a stellar attorney, and that it was only in the final months of 2006, when Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans complained to the White House, that Iglesias was added to the list of those who would be fired.

Domenici had complained about Iglesias for two years, and it’s also clear that he had problems with Iglesias long before the October 2006 phone calls he and Wilson placed to Iglesias. What’s not clear is how exactly Iglesias’ name came to be added to the list and the motive behind that, though it is known that the White House played a role.

You can watch video of Comey’s testimony from TPMMuckraker.com.

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