Chavez-like, dubya, dickhead, puto Gonzalez pre-empting Exec/Repug prosectuions

[boutons_]

January 19, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Surging and Purging

By PAUL KRUGMAN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

There’s something happening here, and what it is seems completely clear: the Bush administration is trying to protect itself by purging independent-minded prosecutors.

Last month, Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney (federal prosecutor) for the Eastern District of Arkansas, received a call on his cellphone while hiking in the woods with his son. He was informed that he had just been replaced by J. Timothy Griffin, a Republican political operative who has spent the last few years working as an opposition researcher for Karl Rove.

Mr. Cummins’s case isn’t unique. Since the middle of last month, the Bush administration has pushed out at least four U.S. attorneys, and possibly as many as seven, without explanation. The list includes Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney for San Diego, who successfully prosecuted Duke Cunningham, a Republican congressman, on major corruption charges. The top F.B.I. official in San Diego told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Ms. Lam’s dismissal would undermine multiple continuing investigations.

In Senate testimony yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to say how many other attorneys have been asked to resign, calling it a “personnel matter.”

( Puto is making Janet Reno look one of the greatest AG of all time )

In case you’re wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn’t normal. U.S. attorneys, The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, “typically are appointed at the beginning of a new president’s term, and serve throughout that term.” Why, then, are prosecutors that the Bush administration itself appointed suddenly being pushed out?

The likely answer is that for the first time the administration is really worried about where corruption investigations might lead.

Since the day it took power this administration has shown nothing but contempt for the normal principles of good government. For six years ethical problems and conflicts of interest have been the rule, not the exception.

For a long time the administration nonetheless seemed untouchable, protected both by Republican control of Congress and by its ability to justify anything and everything as necessary for the war on terror. Now, however, the investigations are closing in on the Oval Office. The latest news is that J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary of the Interior Department and the poster child for the administration’s systematic policy of putting foxes in charge of henhouses, is finally facing possible indictment.

And the purge of U.S. attorneys looks like a pre-emptive strike against the gathering forces of justice.

Won’t the administration have trouble getting its new appointees confirmed by the Senate? Well, it turns out that it won’t have to.

Arlen Specter, the Republican senator who headed the Judiciary Committee until Congress changed hands, made sure of that last year. Previously, new U.S. attorneys needed Senate confirmation within 120 days or federal district courts would name replacements. But as part of a conference committee reconciling House and Senate versions of the revised Patriot Act, Mr. Specter slipped in a clause eliminating that rule.

As Paul Kiel of TPMmuckraker.com (http://tpmmuckraker.com/) — which has done yeoman investigative reporting on this story — put it, this clause in effect allows the administration “to handpick replacements and keep them there in perpetuity without the ordeal of Senate confirmation.” How convenient.

Mr. Gonzales says that there’s nothing political about the firings. And according to The Associated Press, he said that district court judges shouldn’t appoint U.S. attorneys because they “tend to appoint friends and others not properly qualified to be prosecutors.” Words fail me.

Mr. Gonzales also says that the administration intends to get Senate confirmation for every replacement. Sorry, but that’s not at all credible, even if we ignore the administration’s track record. Mr. Griffin, the political-operative-turned-prosecutor, would be savaged in a confirmation hearing. By appointing him, the administration showed that it has no intention of following the usual rules.

The broader context is this: defeat in the midterm elections hasn’t led the Bush administration to scale back its imperial view of presidential power.

On the contrary, now that President Bush can no longer count on Congress to do his bidding, he’s more determined than ever to claim essentially unlimited authority — whether it’s the authority to send more troops into Iraq or the authority to stonewall investigations into his own administration’s conduct.

The next two years, in other words, are going to be a rolling constitutional crisis.


===============

Attack Krugman all you want but even the Repug house organ WSJ is on on the purge, refute the facts of the article, and his interpretation.

Let me save you the typing, "Boutons hates Amerika" :lol

[Fillmoe]

Let me save you the typing, "Boutons hates AmeriKKKa" :lol

[Yonivore]

Didn't Clinton fire every single U.S. Attorney when he took office?

[clambake]

I guess you didn't read the article.

[Yonivore]

I guess you didn't read the article.
Yeah, I did. It's a personnel matter.

Bill Clinton didn't even give the attorneys time to demonstrate their competence.

[boutons_]

Yoni believes that little politicized liar Puto.

It's common, even traditional, for US prosecutors to be housecleaned at the beginning of a new term, with them mostly serving out the Presidential term(s).

It's UNUSUAL to have housecleaning 6 years into a presidential term, just after the WH lost protection of a same-party Congress, just as a lot of corruption cases targetting the WH's party are coming to flower or fruition.

========

btw, Krugman's opening line is a play on an old 60s anti-war/paranoia song:

http://people.clarkson.edu/~winklebh/vietnam2/buffalo.html (http://people.clarkson.edu/%7Ewinklebh/vietnam2/buffalo.html)

[Yonivore]

Yoni believes that little politicized liar Puto.
Yep, I do.

[clambake]

Why the action? Do they have something to hide?

[Yonivore]

Why the action? Do they have something to hide?
I have no idea, it's a personnel matter. I'm not even curious.

And, to correct a couple of mischaracterizations, no President has ever fired every single U. S. Attorney on the employment rolls, as did Clinton, and firing 4 or 5 during the sixth year of your presidency does not a "house-cleaning" make.

Nice grasping there, though.

[Yonivore]

yes
What? And, given the propensity of opponents of this administration to leak information, I doubt seriously that if there is anything to hide -- that firing these attorneys would attempt to conceal -- they'll call the New York Times tomorrow.

[Yonivore]

every political admin has "something to hide" ------ add this to the FACT that the bush administration has done the greatest job in the history of the US Presidency at controlling message and information, and you can infer that they have some big juicy secrets just waiting to come out.... what they're so good at is making sure that opponents of the administration can't find out these secrets
Really? At least there's no allegations of this administration having people killed; nor is there a 100's long list of people, associated with this president, that have died mysteriously.

Sorry, Clinton wins that honor, hands down. Hell, he even had some woman that was hired to control bimbo eruptions.

If this president were controlling the information, his approval rating would be through the roof.

[Yonivore]

how about allegations of false flag terrorism? and how can you say the pres ain't controlling information? how about his refusal to conduct interviews with reputable journalists, settling instead for superficial media circuses and monologues directed to a tv camera
Didn't he just do a 60 minutes interview?

What is "false flag terrorism?"

[Yonivore]

:lol 60 minutes :lol i hope you're kidding!
Not exactly a friendly press. And, didn't he give Katie an exclusive on her first day as anchor?


anything on tv that doesn't appear on Jim Lehrers program is crap
I don't recall Lehrers' interview with any major politician, except in the context of a debate.


false flag terrorism is when an administration commits a terrorist act (such as 9/11) and then blames it on terrorists in order to gain support for the administration
There's a lot of whacky stuff said about every administration. And, again, Clinton's got 'em beat there. Remember Mena and Oklahoma City? People said he was up to his neck in both.


i'm not saying i believe bush caused 9/11, but people have made allegations
Sure.

[IceColdBrewski]

For someone who's supposed to be so stupid, Bush sure is smart when it comes to covering his ass. :lol

[clambake]

That's some fixation you have with clinton. I guess there's not much left, huh Yoni?

[George Gervin's Afro]

That's some fixation you have with clinton. I guess there's not much left, huh Yoni?


Yoni lost me when he mentioned 100 dead people and Clinton being responsible for them. Amazing thing about that is how many murders could go unsolved related to the clinton family.. :lol

[ChumpDumper]

He claimed multiple hundreds. Yoni just put in his bid for new wearer of the tinfoil hat.

[j-6]

Hell, he even had some woman that was hired to control bimbo eruptions.

Was she promoted from fluffer?

[boutons_]

Yoni still believes all that "vast right wing talk-radio/radical right/bubba" bullshit that that Clinton murdered or had people murdered. Holy shit.

And he has proof that no prosecutor could, just like Yoni has proof of WMD in Iraq and proof of Saddam involved hitting the WTC and in all kinds of terror.

[exstatic]

Congress has prosecutorial powers, and they don't control that anymore. They will be able to find out anything they want, and while removal is beyond their reach, they can drop a nice, big Clintonesque stain in his record by impeaching.

[Yonivore]

I guess you all missed the context of my comments but, that's no surprise, given you're all a bunch of mindless, "Bush-lied-people-died" zombies.

The pimp said (in explaining to me what "false flag terrorism" was:


false flag terrorism is when an administration commits a terrorist act (such as 9/11) and then blames it on terrorists in order to gain support for the administration.

i'm not saying i believe bush caused 9/11, but people have made allegations

To which I responded:


There's a lot of whacky stuff said about every administration. And, again, Clinton's got 'em beat there. Remember Mena and Oklahoma City? People said he was up to his neck in both.
In that context it is clear -- and, especially to me since I wrote it -- that I was responding that there is a lot of whacky stuff said about every administration, including Clinton's (which, in my opinion, has 'em all beat).

Seriously, consider all the crazy stuff Clinton is accused of doing. From killing teenagers in Mena to being complicit in the Oklahoma City bombings to his involvement in Vince Foster's death.

I never opined one way or the other on whether or not I believed the allegations, I was merely pointing out that elpimpo's comment regarding the wacky stuff President Bush is accused of doing happens in every administration but, most was at a zenith during the Clinton administration.

As far as the Bimbo eruption patrol...that's pretty much been confirmed.

[FromWayDowntown]

I never opined one way or the other on whether or not I believed the allegations, I was merely pointing out that elpimpo's comment regarding the wacky stuff President Bush is accused of doing happens in every administration but, most was at a zenith during the Clinton administration.

Nor did elpimpo opine about the complicity vel non of the Bush Administration in 9/11; I presume that in each circumstance, the accused President is simply being portrayed by political enemies as a putative criminal.

Nevertheless, if you take the opposite view and presume that all of the allegations are correct, I'd be hard-pressed to believe that the contentions about Bush weren't manifold times worse than the contentions about Clinton.

In other words, if the allegations of some are evidence that wacky stuff is alleged about any presidential administration and the fact of that wacky stuff is enough to say one trumps another, I'm not exactly sure how allegations of several hundred murders could, in any way, be worse than allegations of several thousand murders. Unless, of course, you're a complete hack for one side and a complete disbeliever of the other.

[boutons_]

Scumbag puto, having purged US Attorneys, is now appointing Repug partisan operatives as replacements. Puto knows the Exec/Repugs are guilty/vulnerable as hell on corruption, etc, charges, so he's strangling the prosecutors in the crib.

==============

Gonzales Appoints Political Loyalists Into Vacant US Attorneys Slots

By Marisa Taylor and Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers

Friday 26 January 2007

Washington - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is transforming the ranks of the nation's top federal prosecutors by firing some and appointing conservative loyalists from the Bush administration's inner circle who critics say are unlikely to buck Washington.

The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they've been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors.

( in dubya-world, loyalty to dubya trumps competence )


The nine recent appointees identified by McClatchy Newspapers held high-level White House or Justice Department jobs, and most of them were handpicked by Gonzales under a little-noticed provision of the Patriot Act that became law in March.

With Congress now controlled by the Democrats, critics fear that in some cases Gonzales is trying to skirt the need for Senate confirmation by giving new U.S. attorneys interim appointments for indefinite terms. Some legal scholars contend that the administration pushed for the change in the Patriot Act as part of its ongoing attempt to expand the power of the executive branch, a charge that administration officials deny.

Being named a U.S. attorney "has become a prize for doing the bidding of the White House or administration," said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who's now a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "In the past, there had been a great deal of delegation to the local offices. Now, you have a consolidation of power in Washington."

A Justice Department spokesman said it was "reckless" to suggest that politics had influenced the appointment process.

The appointments have troubled some current and former prosecutors, who worry that the Justice Department is tightening its control over local U.S. attorneys' offices in order to curb the prosecutors' independence.

If they're too close to the administration, these lawyers said, federal prosecutors might not be willing to pursue important but controversial cases that don't fit into the administration's agenda. Similarly, they said, U.S. attorneys could be forced to pursue only Washington's priorities rather than their own.

The selection of U.S. attorneys has always been a political process.

Traditionally, the top assistant U.S. attorney in each local office temporarily fills any vacancy while home-state senators search for preferred candidates to present to the White House for consideration. If it takes more than four months to find a permanent successor, a judge can extend the temporary appointment or name another acting U.S. attorney. Ultimately, the candidates must be confirmed by the Senate.

Gonzales gained the ability to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for indefinite terms as a result of a change to the Patriot Act that stripped federal judges of their appointment power.

A Justice Department spokesman denied that Gonzales has sought to compromise the independence of U.S. attorneys' offices by appointing political loyalists. In some recent cases Gonzales has followed the traditional process.

"Allegations that politics inappropriately interfere with personnel decisions made about U.S. attorneys are reckless and plainly wrong," department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said. "... The bottom line is that we nominate experienced attorneys who we believe can do the job."

( but US attorneys are traditionallyappointed at the beginning of a presidential term, ie, 6 years ago, not AFTER the US electorate has fired dubya with 2 years remaining AND political corruption investigations in full swing )

He said that it's common for attorneys to serve stints at department headquarters and that it "can be tremendously beneficial" for a U.S. attorney to have served in Washington.

Gonzales and his aides also deny that they're attempting to do an end run around the Senate. In a recent letter to two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said the change was sought to avoid conflicts involving federal judges appointing officials to posts in the executive branch of government.

( nobody believes these Exec motherfuckers anymore.
If their lips are moving, ... )

At a recent Senate hearing, Gonzales said the administration is committed to giving senators of the president's party their traditional say in selecting U.S. attorney candidates.

Since last March, the administration has named at least nine U.S. attorneys with administration ties. None would agree to an interview. They include:

* Tim Griffin, 37, the U.S. attorney for Arkansas, who was an aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove and a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

* Rachel Paulose, 33, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, who served briefly as a counselor to the deputy attorney general and who, according to a former boss, has been a member of the secretive, ideologically conservative Federalist Society.

* Jeff Taylor, 42, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., who was an aide to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and worked as a counselor to Gonzales and to former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

* John Wood, U.S. attorney in Kansas City, who's the husband of Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Julie Myers and an ex-deputy general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

* Deborah Rhodes, 47, the U.S. attorney in Mobile, Ala., who was a Justice Department counselor.

* Alexander Acosta, 37, the U.S. attorney in Miami, who was an assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division and a protégé of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

* John Richter, 43, the U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City, who was the chief of staff for the Justice Department's criminal division and acting assistant attorney general.

* Edward McNally, the U.S. attorney in southern Illinois, who was a senior associate counsel to President Bush.

* Matt Dummermuth, the U.S. attorney in Iowa, who was a Justice Department civil rights lawyer.

Some of these appointees have drawn praise from local skeptics and later won Senate confirmation for permanent appointments.

Roehrkasse said that while some newly appointed U.S. attorneys might have political connections, they all have outstanding credentials.

Todd Jones, who was a U.S. attorney in Minneapolis during the Clinton administration, said he was concerned by the overall trend of an administration putting into place a "more centralized, command-and-control system."

Several prosecutors said prior Republican administrations avoided such tight control.

"Under Reagan and the first Bush administration, we worked very hard to push the power out to the locals," said Jean Paul Bradshaw, who was a U.S. attorney in Kansas City under President George H.W. Bush. "Local attorneys know how a case will play in their areas, what crimes are a problem. Ultimately, these decisions are better made locally."

( not with dickhead pulling the Exec strings. He wants accumulation and concenctration of power in the Exec, and everything cloaked in secrecy, super democtratic patriot that he is )
Peter Nunez, a U.S. attorney in San Diego under President Reagan for six years, said prosecutors have expressed frustration with the strict oversight from Washington.

"I've heard nothing but complaints over the last six years about how many things the Justice Department is demanding relating to bureaucracy and red tape," Nunez said.

In the wake of the recent firings of a half-dozen U.S. attorneys, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, filed bills that would restore to federal judges the right to name interim appointees when vacancies develop. On Thursday, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., whose office has confirmed that he inserted language making the change in Patriot Act last year, gave his qualified support to Feinstein's bill.

Justice Department officials have refused to say how many prosecutors were fired or to explain the firings, but Feinstein has said she's aware of the ouster of at least seven U.S. attorneys since March 2006.

Former U.S. attorneys who know some of those ousted said they were concerned because the administration in some cases offered no reason for the dismissals.

Among those dismissed were Carol Lam of San Diego, whose office won a bribery conviction against then-Rep. Randolph "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., and prosecuted several members of San Diego's city council. The Cunningham case is ongoing.

Also ordered to resign was Kevin Ryan, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, who was overseeing high-profile investigations into steroids use by major league baseball players and the backdating of stock options by Apple Inc., and other firms.

"One of the strengths of any administration towards the end of their time in office is having highly experienced people in place," said Tom Heffelfinger, the former U.S. attorney in Minneapolis who voluntarily resigned and was replaced by Paulose. "It helps things function really smoothly, and you get your priorities handled aggressively and efficiently."

( dickhead and puto don't want smooth functioning they want Exec- controlled dysfunctioning of the "law". ie, Repugs are above the law. )

you're doing a heckuva job, dubya

24 more months ....

[boutons_]

February 26, 2007

Editorial Observer

Why Have So Many U.S. Attorneys Been Fired? It Looks a Lot Like Politics

By ADAM COHEN

Carol Lam, the former United States attorney for San Diego, is smart and tireless and was very good at her job. Her investigation of Representative Randy Cunningham resulted in a guilty plea for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors and a sentence of more than eight years. Two weeks ago, she indicted Kyle Dustin Foggo, the former No. 3 official in the C.I.A. The defense-contracting scandal she pursued so vigorously could yet drag in other politicians.

In many Justice Departments, her record would have won her awards, and perhaps a promotion to a top post in Washington. In the Bush Justice Department, it got her fired.

Ms. Lam is one of at least seven United States attorneys fired recently under questionable circumstances. The Justice Department is claiming that Ms. Lam and other well-regarded prosecutors like John McKay of Seattle, David Iglesias of New Mexico, Daniel Bogden of Nevada and Paul Charlton of Arizona — who all received strong job evaluations — performed inadequately.

It is hard to call what’s happening anything other than a political purge. And it’s another shameful example of how in the Bush administration, everything — from rebuilding a hurricane-ravaged city to allocating homeland security dollars to invading Iraq — is sacrificed to partisan politics and winning elections.

U.S. attorneys have enormous power. Their decision to investigate or indict can bankrupt a business or destroy a life. They must be, and long have been, insulated from political pressures. Although appointed by the president, once in office they are almost never asked to leave until a new president is elected. The Congressional Research Service has confirmed how unprecedented these firings are. It found that of 486 U.S. attorneys confirmed since 1981, perhaps no more than three were forced out in similar ways — three in 25 years, compared with seven in recent months.

It is not just the large numbers. The firing of H. E. Cummins III is raising as many questions as Ms. Lam’s. Mr. Cummins, one of the most distinguished lawyers in Arkansas, is respected by Republicans and Democrats alike. But he was forced out to make room for J. Timothy Griffin, a former Karl Rove deputy with thin legal experience who did opposition research for the Republican National Committee. (Mr. Griffin recently bowed to the inevitable and said he will not try for a permanent appointment. But he remains in office indefinitely.)

The Bush administration cleared the way for these personnel changes by slipping a little-noticed provision into the Patriot Act last year that allows the president to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for an indefinite period without Senate confirmation.

Three theories are emerging for why these well-qualified U.S. attorney were fired — all political, and all disturbing.

1. Helping friends. Ms. Lam had already put one powerful Republican congressman in jail and was investigating other powerful politicians. The Justice Department, unpersuasively, claims that it was unhappy about Ms. Lam’s failure to bring more immigration cases. Meanwhile, Ms. Lam has been replaced with an interim prosecutor whose résumé shows almost no criminal law experience, but includes her membership in the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

2. Candidate recruitment. U.S. attorney is a position that can make headlines and launch political careers. Congressional Democrats suspect that the Bush administration has been pushing out long-serving U.S. attorneys to replace them with promising Republican lawyers who can then be run for Congress and top state offices.

3. Presidential politics. The Justice Department concedes that Mr. Cummins was doing a good job in Little Rock. An obvious question is whether the administration was more interested in his successor’s skills in opposition political research — let’s not forget that Arkansas has been lucrative fodder for Republicans in the past — in time for the 2008 elections.

The charge of politics certainly feels right. This administration has made partisanship its lodestar. The Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran revealed in his book, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” that even applicants to help administer post-invasion Iraq were asked whom they voted for in 2000 and what they thought of Roe v. Wade.

Congress has been admirably aggressive about investigating. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, held a tough hearing. And he is now talking about calling on the fired U.S. attorneys to testify and subpoenaing their performance evaluations — both good ideas.

The politicization of government over the last six years has had tragic consequences — in New Orleans, Iraq and elsewhere. But allowing politics to infect U.S. attorney offices takes it to a whole new level. Congress should continue to pursue the case of the fired U.S. attorneys vigorously, both to find out what really happened and to make sure that it does not happen again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/opinion/26mon4.html?hp

[boutons_]

Attorney Says He Was Pressured on Corruption Probe

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 28, 2007; 4:46 PM

The fired U.S. attorney in New Mexico says he was pressured by two members of Congress prior to the November elections about the pace of an ongoing public corruption probe that targets local Democrats.

David C. Iglesias -- who is leaving today after more than five years in office -- said he received separate calls in October from two federal lawmakers, whom he declined to identify. Iglesias said he suspects the episode led the Justice Department to include him in a wave of firings of federal prosecutors late last year.

"They were fishing around for information in terms of the status of the investigation," Iglesias said in an interview, referring to the lawmakers. "They were fishing around for a timetable. Those are things I'm prohibited from talking about."

Iglesias said the callers seemed focused on whether indictments in the case might be issued prior to the elections.

"I didn't give them what they wanted," Iglesias said. "That was probably a political problem that caused them to go to the White House or whomever and complain that I wasn't a team player."

The allegations add a new dimension to the controversy over the abrupt firings of Iglesias and seven other U.S. attorneys, at least four of whom were presiding over major public corruption investigations at the time they were dismissed. Although other fired prosecutors have publicly defended their records, none has previously alleged that political pressure related to an ongoing criminal investigation played a role in their dismissal.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied that the probe, which involved construction contracts for courthouses in New Mexico, had any bearing on Iglesias's dismissal. Roehrkasse also said Iglesias had an obligation to report any calls from lawmakers to the Justice Department.

"The administration has never removed a U.S. attorney in an effort to retaliate against him or inappropriately interfere with a public integrity investigation," Roehrkasse said.

( Roehrkasse's lips were moving, so .... )

A spokesman for Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) said neither Pearce nor his staff had any contacts with Iglesias about the case. The offices of New Mexico's two other Republican lawmakers, Sen. Pete V. Domenici and Rep. Heather A. Wilson, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Iglesias and six other U.S. attorneys were notified by phone on Dec. 7 that they were being fired and were offered no explanations for their dismissals. An eighth U.S. attorney in Little Rock also left office in December after being removed in order to make room for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The firings have prompted a noisy debate on Capitol Hill over the power of the attorney general to appoint interim prosecutors indefinitely, and some Democrats have also accused the Justice Department of targeting prosecutors who were pursuing public corruption cases. In addition to Iglesias's probe involving Democrats, fired prosecutors in Arizona, Nevada and California were conducting ongoing corruption probes involving Republicans at the time of their dismissals.

Justice officials have acknowledged political motives in the Arkansas case but have said the seven others were fired for "performance-related" reasons. At least six of the eight prosecutors received positive job evaluations prior to being fired, however.

Iglesias, 49, a Navy Reserve commander whose role in a famous military hazing case was the basis for the Tom Cruise character in the movie "A Few Good Men," is the son of a Baptist minister.

Iglesias held a news conference in Albuquerque this morning to discuss his accomplishments as U.S. attorney. He also spoke to The Post in a telephone interview conducted yesterday, under the condition that his comments would not be reported until after today's news press conference.

In the interview, Iglesias said the two lawmakers called him about a well-known criminal probe involving a Democratic legislator. He declined to provide their party affiliation, but suggested by his comments that the callers were Republicans.

Local media outlets reported last year that the FBI and Iglesias's office had opened a probe into allegations involving a former longtime Democratic state senator, Manny Aragon, and government construction projects in Bernalillo County. No charges have been issued in the case.

Iglesias said the phone calls made him feel "pressured to hurry the subsequent cases and prosecutions," but he also said he did not receive similar contacts from anyone in the executive branch. He also said he made a mistake by not reporting the calls to the Justice Department as "inappropriate contacts." Now he believes the contacts lie at the root of his firing.

"I suspect that was the reason I was asked to step down, but I don't know that I'll ever know," Iglesias said.

=========

Repugs are nasty, corrupt, law-disrespectful motherfuckers.