The news service is quoting an official close to the investigation who says that prosecutor Nora Dannehy has closed her investigation without filing charges.

The U.S. Attorneys firing scandal erupted in early 2007 after the Bush administration fired several U.S. Attorneys, including New Mexico’s then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, in December 2006. The scandal that resulted from the firings, which appeared to be politically motivated, eventually led to several high-profile resignations at the U.S. Justice Department, including then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Iglesias has repeatedly defended his tenure as U.S. Attorney and now is working as a Navy Judge Advocate General at Guantanamo Bay.

David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, today discussed new rules in put in place by the Obama administration military commissions, The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman reported.
According to Ackerman, Iglesias focused on some of the changes made recently and noted that some rules for the commissions have not yet been established.

Iglesias was fired from his post as U.S. Attorney after apparent pressure from New Mexico Republicans, including then-U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson and then-U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici , because they did not feel he was pursuing voter fraud cases with enough urgency.

Before becoming U.S. Attorney, Iglesias was a Navy JAG officer.

“Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to provide a ‘fair’ day in court on U.S. soil for the same terrorists who seek to destroy this great nation and western civilization is both dangerous to the American people and offensive to the many who served to protect our country,” Weh, a decorated retired Colonel of the United States Marine Corps Reserve, said in a release sent out Thursday.

But others say that trying terrorists in civilian courts is nothing new. Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York and currently a blogger for Salon.com, calls the reaction a “surrender” to terrorists:

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system.  They didn’t allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice.  Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country’s 2004 train bombings.  The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London.  Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali.  India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents.  In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

The Wall Street Journal opinion piece, however, says:

Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren’t a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday’s decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

A majority of Americans, according to a CNN poll, say that they believe that Khalid Shiekh Mohammed should not be tried in federal court — however, a slightly larger majority says a trial in military court should still happen on American soil.

Already, one 9/11 conspirator, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been tried and convicted — though not given the death penalty — in federal civil court in Virginia.

Either way, it looks like Weh jumped into a very complicated constitutional and political mess.

Many are saying they believe the trial should be moved from New York City. Andrew Cohen, CBS News’ chief legal analyst and legal editor, writing for The Daily Beast, addresses the issue of moving the trial:

Even in the only 9/11 trial to date—the Zacarias Moussaoui conspiracy sentencing trial—a federal judge in Virginia refused to change location from Alexandria, Virginia. The only federal trial that would even remotely compare with the Mohammed trial was the 1997 trial of bomber Timothy McVeigh, the man who killed 168 people on April 19, 1995, when he blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Until 9/11, that trial was the biggest mass-murder trial in American history. Mohammed, meanwhile, may be on the hook for a capital trial linked to 10 times as many victims.

In the McVeigh case, even as early as his arraignment, defense attorneys sought a change of venue. First, they argued that the case be moved to another federal district within Oklahoma. Next, they argued that the case be moved out of Oklahoma City altogether. Jury-selection experts were consulted. Media experts were polled. And in the end, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch moved the Oklahoma City bombing trial out of the state and to neighboring Denver. About 15 months later, McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death by a federal jury in Denver.

Weh’s statement also addresses another controversial issue — whether or not alleged terrorists being held in Guantanamo Bay should be moved to facilities within the United States. From the gubernatorial candidates’ statement:

Weh said he believes a governor’s top priority is to provide safety to the citizens the state, just as the president’s No. 1 priority is to protect the people of the U.S. As a strong supporter of the 10th Amendment and prerogatives given to an elected governor of a state, Weh said he will do everything in his power as governor of New Mexico to stop the federal government from confining known terrorists in this state.

While, to my knowledge, there has been no movement to bring to New Mexico those currently held in Guantanamo Bay, that cannot be said for other states. For example, some in the village of Thomson, Illinois are hoping for the transfer of prisoners to an abandoned prison to increase job opportunities in the area.

U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who is running for Senate, blasted the idea, writing a letter to President Barack Obama saying, “As home to America’s tallest building and leading defense suppliers, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target.”

Kirk was opposed, however, by former Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (Barr ran for President in 2008 as a libertarian), Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist and American Conservative Union founder David Keene.

“The scaremongering about these issues should stop,” they wrote in a letter circulated by the Constitution Project. “It makes sense for the community, which will benefit from the related employment and has absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities.”

Yesterday, an amendment put forward by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., which would have blocked the use of federal money to “adapt or build” facilities for Guantanamo Bay detainees failed.

All in all, very complicated issues with, perhaps, no right answers.

The Dona Ana County Commissioners have expressed unanimous support for a domestic partnership bill being heard at the Roundhouse today, says the Las Cruces Sun-News. “It’s a good thing to have for various reasons, for legal reasons, for medical reasons,” said County Commission Chairwoman Leticia Duarte-Benavidez. “Overall, it is fair to everybody.”

One man in Alamogordo is terrified that prisoners from Guantanamo Bay may be transferred to an Otero County immigrant detention center when Gitmo closes, according to the Alamogordo News. He’s been standing on an Alamogordo street corner holding a sign that says: “No Islamic jihadists from Guantanamo in Otero Country [sic]. Send them to Harry Reed [sic] in NV. These people are killers.”

The $2.7 billion fence along the border between the United States and Mexico is only 69 miles from completion, but it is possible the Obama administration may halt the progress of the controversial fence, the AP reports. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is not a big fan of the fence, half of which is in her home state of Arizona.

“Proposed legislative cuts target ethnic programs,” says a story in today’s Daily Lobo. The proposed cuts would completely eliminate legislative funding for Uuniversity of New Mexico programs such as African American Student Services; it would slash money for El Centro de la Raza by nearly 40 percent. “This is huge,” said Veronica Mendez-Cruz, director of El Centro de la Raza. “This will translate, for us, (into) drastically cutting services to our students, our community. It will mean possibly laying off two to three staff folks here because the funding I receive from the Legislature pretty much is everything that we do here.”

The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has given New Mexico $3.8 million to clean up abandoned coal mines near Lordsburg, T or C, Grants and Soccoro. Mining was begun in the area in 1876, but now the shafts are used only by owls, “miner’s cats” and javelinas. “We remain disappointed that the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement restricts our ability to use the funds for reclamation of projects on uranium and other non-coal mines,” Bill Brancard of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department told the Deming Headlight.

TPM noted that Iglesias isn’t on the job because of anyone from President Barack Obama’s staff or Obama himself. His appointment is actually a couple of weeks old.

Of course, it is moot — at least at the moment — because Obama ordered all Guantanamo Bay prosecutions to come to a halt earlier today.

As NMI’s own Marjorie Childress wrote earlier today:

He’s already been looking through files and has been to Gitmo once, he said. Whether he goes again depends on the direction the new administration gives.

TPM wrote, “the person who approved him for the position was Susan Crawford, who runs the Office of Military Commissions.”

And who is Crawford?

Crawford, you’ll remember, is also the one who just unambiguously used the word ‘torture’ to describe at least some treatment of detainees in US custody.

The fact that Crawford only used that term (or allowed the words to be published) as Bush and Cheney were days from leaving office showed pretty clearly that people in the military bureaucracy were already starting to shift in expectation of the changing of the guard. And Iglesias’ appointment would seem to fall into the same category.

So it wasn’t something specifically from the new administration, but TPM believes it was still influenced by the anticipated shift.