{"id":2040,"date":"2007-07-31T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-31T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/iglesias-to-talk-to-ethics-committee-about-wilson\/"},"modified":"2007-07-31T11:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-31T17:45:00","slug":"iglesias-to-talk-to-ethics-committee-about-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/iglesias-to-talk-to-ethics-committee-about-wilson\/","title":{"rendered":"Iglesias to talk to ethics committee about Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct<\/a> may finally be getting around to considering a complaint<\/a> filed against Rep. Heather Wilson<\/a>, R-N.M., over her role in the U.S.<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place> attorney controversy.<\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

David Iglesias<\/a>, the former U.S.<\/st1:country-region> attorney for New Mexico<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>, will be interviewed today by the staff of the committee, the Albuquerque Tribune<\/a> is reporting. It\u2019s the first sign that the committee might consider the request made in March by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington<\/a> for a probe of the situation.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

House rules generally require a complaint from a House member before such an investigation can take place.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Today\u2019s interview is apparently a preliminary discussion. Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s spokesman told the Tribune that the representative has not been notified of a probe or hired an attorney, which indicates the committee has not appointed members to investigate.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Iglesias told the newspaper he\u2019s being interviewed by the committee\u2019s chairwoman and ranking Republican.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Wilson and Sen. Pete Domenici<\/a>, R-N.M., called Iglesias in October 2006 to inquire about a public corruption investigation that was rumored at the time to involve high-ranking Democrats and, earlier this year, led to the indictment of former Senate President Manny Aragon.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

At the time of the phone calls, Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> was in a tough re-election battle, and Iglesias alleges that the two pressured him to speed indictments to affect the outcome of the election.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Iglesias claims Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> inquired about whether there were any \u201csealed indictments\u201d in the case. He says he refused the pressure and, two months later, was fired without being given reason.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> admits making the call and inquiring about the investigation, saying she was responding to the concerns of a constituent, but says she never asked about indictments or did anything inappropriate. Domenici and other New Mexico Republicans had been complaining to the Bush Administration about Iglesias for years.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Many analysts say Congressional rules forbid direct contact with prosecutors about pending cases, even if no pressure is applied. The group that filed the ethics complaint against Wilson<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> contends that the House forbids even a request for \u201cbackground information\u201d or a \u201cstatus report\u201d on a pending investigation because such requests \u201cmay in effect be an indirect or subtle effort to influence the substantive outcome of the proceedings.\u201d In fact, Iglesias was required by Department of Justice rules to report the phone calls to supervisors but he did not, saying that, at the time, he considered Wilson and friend and Domenici a mentor.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s interview won\u2019t be public. It was first reported by the blog truthout.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct may finally be getting around to considering a complaint filed against Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., over her role in the U.S. attorney controversy. David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, will be interviewed today by the staff of the committee, the Albuquerque Tribune is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2040\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}