Mikaela says:
Great L.A. Times article on Heather Wilson's role in the Iglesias firing that's heating up the next beltway GOP scandal, which is putting pressure on the Bush administration to:
- Fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
- Fire Karl Rove, and
- Stop firing competent federal judges and replacing them with toe-the-line party hacks.
Excerpts:
It was just three weeks before election day 2006, and Rep. Heather A. Wilson was on the ropes. Opinion polls showed the New Mexico Republican trailing her Democratic opponent in a tough campaign.
...
One person in a good position to help Wilson was U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias, who was investigating Democratic corruption in her home state. A late-breaking indictment of Democratic officials could help Wilson distance herself from sex and lobbying scandals plaguing the GOP in Washington.
That's why eyebrows raised when it was recently disclosed that, in the heat of her fight for political survival, Wilson called Iglesias to ask about possible indictments. So did Domenici.
Both lawmakers have denied that they called Iglesias for political purposes or pressured him. But questions about their actions have turned what might have been a narrow investigation of the Justice Department's late-2006 decision to fire Iglesias and seven other U.S. attorneys into a broader controversy about the ethical limits of lawmakers' influence on prosecutors.
...
Democrats see the New Mexico episode as indicative of the lengths Republicans were willing to go to gain political advantage in the crucial midterm elections that ended up changing the balance of power in Congress.
...
Iglesias understood that news of indictments against them would probably boost Wilson's chances.
"I was aware that public corruption was a huge battle being waged by Patricia Madrid and Heather Wilson in the 1st District," he said. "And I assiduously tried to stay out of that fight."
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