1 Boring Old Man

Why I Was Fired

By DAVID C. IGLESIAS

March 21, 2007

Albuquerque

WITH this week’s release of more than 3,000 Justice Department e-mail messages about the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors, it seems clear that politics played a role in the ousters.

Of course, as one of the eight, I’ve felt this way for some time. But now that the record is out there in black and white for the rest of the country to see, the argument that we were fired for “performance related” reasons (in the words of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty) is starting to look more than a little wobbly.

United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political.

…

Good has already come from this scandal. Yesterday, the Senate voted to overturn a 2006 provision in the Patriot Act that allows the attorney general to appoint indefinite interim United States attorneys. The attorney general’s chief of staff has resigned and been replaced by a respected career federal prosecutor, Chuck Rosenberg. The president and attorney general have admitted that “mistakes were made,” and Mr. Domenici and Ms. Wilson have publicly acknowledged calling me.

President Bush addressed this scandal yesterday. I appreciate his gratitude for my service — this marks the first time I have been thanked. But only a written retraction by the Justice Department setting the record straight regarding my performance would settle the issue for me.

David C. Iglesias was United States attorney for the District of New Mexico from October 2001 through last month.

Above all else, America is a nation of the people, by the people, for the people. Another Federal Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, said, "Her name Valerie Wilson. She had a life before Joe Wilson, but to them she wasn’t Val Wilson, she wasn’t a person, she was an argument, she was a fact to use against Wilson." And David Inglesias is a person too. And as of today 3223 individual young American people and unmeasured numbers of Iraqi people have died in the Iraq War. Valerie Wilson, David Inglesias, and all of those dead soldiers are patriotic people.

Enough of this…