I was one of the Kossacks who brought to your attention (and eventually that of the MSM) "USAgate"--the mass firing of nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006. Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee wrapped up its 2.5 year investigation by releasing more than 5,400 pages of White House and RNC e-mails and transcripts of closed-door testimony by former Bush counsel Harriet Miers and political chief Karl Rove.
The House panel focused largely on David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico (probably because he was the most egregious case of blatant political firing of a legal superstar). Supposedly, he was fired for being out of the office too much, but we soon learned that the real reason was he was not pursuing public corruption cases against Democrats in a way that could help then-Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) in a tight re-election race.
But the new transcripts and e-mails show that Rove was intimately involved in Iglesias's ouster, and involved at a much earlier junction than previously thought.
For those of you who have yet to have your morning coffe, here's a visual if you want to watch/listen, rather than read:
In their June and July testimony, which they resisted strenuously with bogus claims of executive privilege, both Rove and Miers, apparently suffering from the same amnesia that afflicted former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, said they could not recall key incidents in USAgate. Miers was having many "senior moments," unable to recall events almost 150 times. Rove was a bit more poetic and cocky about it, pleading that he received hundreds of e-mails a day and
asking me to remember replies is lke asking me to remember a raindrop in a thunderstorm.
[Cue crashing thunder soundtrack.]
But it turns out that Miers threw Rovie under the bus, telling investigators that Rove called her in September 2006 "agitated" about the slow pace of public corruption cases against Democrats and weak efforts to pursue voter fraud cases in New Mexico. She said Rove described Iglesias as a "serious problem" and said he wanted "something done" about it. [Cue Sopranos theme song.]
After Rove ordered the hit, Miers called then-Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty to find an executioner.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) summed it up better than I ever could:
Under the Bush regime, honest and well-performing U.S. attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horse-trading, and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the U.S. Attorney corps--that of U.S. Attorney Iglesias--because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections.
Federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, is probing whether criminal charges can be filed against anyone for making false statements and/or for obstruction of justice in connection with the U.S. Attorney massacre and all the subsequent testilying (that's not a typo) before Congress about it.
But I'm not holding my breath.