{"id":4803,"date":"2009-08-11T18:03:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/bush-staffer-asked-why-iglesias-didnt-go-after-madrid\/"},"modified":"2009-08-22T15:24:12","modified_gmt":"2009-08-22T21:24:12","slug":"bush-staffer-asked-why-iglesias-didnt-go-after-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/08\/bush-staffer-asked-why-iglesias-didnt-go-after-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush staffer asked why Iglesias didn’t go after Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

E-mail questioning why Iglesias was \u2018shy about doing his job on Madrid\u2019 was about an FBI probe of Madrid, not the 2006 election, Wilson says<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

E-mails released today may appear to indicate that someone in the White House had the race between former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson<\/a>, R-N.M., and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid<\/a> in mind when discussing former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias\u2019<\/a> job performance in the weeks before he was fired.<\/p>\n

But if Wilson is to be believed, the FBI was investigating Madrid at the time, and a reference to Madrid in the e-mails had to do with that probe, not the election.<\/p>\n

The e-mail in question was sent from White House staffer Scott Jennings<\/a> to White House Political Director Karl Rove<\/a> on Oct. 15, 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 The US Attorney in PA has no trouble going after (former Rep. Curt) Weldon, so why should the US Attorney in New Mexico be shy about doing his job on Madrid,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n

The e-mail was among thousands of pages of documents released to the public today<\/a> by the House Judiciary Committee following its investigation into the 2006 firings of Iglesias and several other U.S. attorneys. The committee\u2019s chairman, John Conyers<\/a>, D-Mich., said the documents, which include e-mails and transcripts of testimony from Rove and Harriet Miers<\/a>, prove that \u201cKarl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Mr. Iglesias said his firing was a \u2018political fragging,\u2019<\/a> he was right,\u201d Conyers said in a news release.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Iglesias agreed, saying Jennings\u2019 e-mail and others in a chain started by Wilson \u201cconfirm my worst fear, that Heather wanted me to disregard my role as a law-enforcement officer and act as a political operative.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHeather wanted me to file a politically advantageous prosecution to help her out, but we had to stay out of politics, and they never understood that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

E-mail came the day before phone call to Iglesias<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson and former U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici<\/a>, R.N.M, separately called Iglesias in October 2006 to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation into the stealing of $4.2 million in taxpayer money in the metro court scandal, which involved a high-ranking Democrat. At the time, Wilson was in a tough re-election battle against Madrid that she won weeks later by fewer than 1,000 votes out of about 211,000 cast.<\/p>\n

Iglesias alleges that Domenici and Wilson pressured him to speed indictments against former state Senate President Manny Aragon and others involved in the case in an attempt to sway voters, a charge both deny. Days after the election, Iglesias was fired.<\/p>\n

A special prosecutor is currently investigating<\/a> whether obstruction of justice or other charges should be filed against anyone involved in the U.S. attorney firings and the congressional investigations into the firings.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s phone call, Iglesias said in the interview, came a day after she started the e-mail chain that involved Jennings on the morning of Oct. 15. Wilson\u2019s e-mail, sent to two of her staffers and then-Domenici Chief of Staff Steve Bell, included an Associated Press article about an FBI investigation into allegations against Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201cFBI or those close to them are talking about public corruption cases opngoing (sic) in other states,\u201d Wilson wrote in the e-mail.<\/p>\n

The e-mail was forwarded to Jennings by Bell, who wrote, \u201cSeems like other USAttorneys can do their work even in election season\u2026 And FBI has already admitted they have turned over their evidence to the USA in NM and are merely awaiting his action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jennings forwarded the e-mail to Rove, along with his own message about Madrid. (To read the e-mails, click here<\/a> and scroll to page 15.)<\/p>\n

Madrid under investigation<\/span><\/p>\n

Wilson, who is considering running for governor next year, did not immediately respond to a message sent via Facebook. But she provided a statement to the Albuquerque Journal<\/a> indicating that the documents released today \u201cconfirm that I did not have any communication with the Administration concerning anything related to Mr. Iglesias\u2019 performance before the final decision was apparently made to dismiss him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson pointed to a letter<\/a> she released in September 2008. The letter, written in response to an inquiry from James Meade in the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), states that her Oct. 15, 2006 e-mail was not related to the U.S. House race but was related to \u201can FBI inquiry concerning my opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, which occurred while she was running for Congress in 2006.\u201d<\/p>\n

The letter states that the FBI asked in June 2006 for information about Madrid\u2019s connection to the political action committee Justice for America. Earlier, Wilson, Domenici and former U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce filed a related complaint with the Federal Election Commission, the letter states.<\/p>\n

The letter contains no other details about the probe.<\/p>\n

From Wilson\u2019s letter to Meade:<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\u201cThe AP story on October 15, 2006 caught my eye because the FBI, or someone close to the FBI, had leaked information about an investigation of Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania to the media. I believed it was possible we would see a similar leak from law enforcement concerning Mrs. Madrid and that we could be asked by the media to comment on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy staff had contingency press guidance that, if asked, we would confirm that we had received an inquiry from the FBI about Attorney General Madrid and we were cooperating with law enforcement. The recipients of my (Oct. 15, 2006) e-mail knew about the FBI inquiry and the contingency press guidance. This e-mail was intended to be a \u2018heads up\u2019 to them. \u201c<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

The probe of Madrid was not revealed publicly until Wilson\u2019s 2008 letter to Meade was released to the media, but even then the Meade letter was not widely covered by journalists.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Madrid said she heard in 2006 from \u201ca number of sources\u2026 that the FBI was threatening me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there was an investigation of me, I\u2019m sure that they were put up to it by Karl Rove, Domenici and Heather Wilson. They instigated all of that,\u201d Madrid said, adding that any allegations made against her were baseless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guarantee you, if the FBI and Iglesias and Karl Rove had had anything on me, they would have used it. They didn\u2019t. They had nothing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Wilson\u2019s call to Iglesias came 2-3 days before the e-mail.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E-mail questioning why Iglesias was \u2018shy about doing his job on Madrid\u2019 was about an FBI probe of Madrid, not the 2006 election, Wilson says E-mails released today may appear to indicate that someone in the White House had the race between former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid in mind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4803","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=4803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}