I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has named a special prosecutor in the case of the U.S. attorney firings to determine if criminal charges should be brought against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, The New York Times is reporting.
Mukasey’s action comes on the same day that the federal Department of Justice released a report that sharply criticized the agency’s handling of the U.S. attorney firings, including that of former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. The report also concludes that Sen. Pete Domenici’s three calls to Gonzales and one call to the former AG’s top aide to complain were ”the primary factor for Iglesias’s placement on the list” of those U.S. Attorneys targeted for firing.
A reason given for former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias’ firing was that he was considered an “absentee landlord” in the parlance of the Bush administration’s Department of Justice. But the new report shows that DOJ executives either didn’t know where the allegation came from or they pinned it on someone who later refuted it.
The report also goes into depth regarding Republican complaints about Iglesias’ handling of voter fraud cases. While some New Mexican Republicans blasted Iglesias for his handling of voter fraud investigations, Iglesias apparently was singled out for praise in the Department of Justice for the way he handled those investigations.
The report says:
Although criticized by some New Mexico Republicans, Iglesias’s task force approach received recognition within the Department. For example, in October 2005 Iglesias was asked to speak at a Department-sponsored symposium on voting integrity. In addition, according to an attorney in the Public Integrity Section, Iglesias’s approach to the problem in New Mexico was held up by the Department as an example of how to handle voter fraud investigations.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Mukasey has chosen Nora R. Dannehy, acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to oversee the new probe, which Mr. Mukasey said would take up the findings from the internal investigation and “ultimately … determine whether any prosecutable offense was committed with regard to the removal of a U.S. Attorney or the testimony of any witness related to the U.S. Attorney removals.”
