The Washington Independent asked Iglesias, who is now part of the special prosecution team for Guantanamo detainees, to respond to the specific allegations Rove makes in the book.

ROVE: [Iglesias] failed to do anything about voter fraud that was so egregious that the Bernalillo County (Albuquerque) clerk, a Democrat, and the sheriff, a Republican, had both called for a federal investigation.

IGLESIAS: [Laughing] Oh, this belief that there was this endemic voter fraud. It’s absolutely true that I didn’t file a case, but that was because I didn’t have any evidence I could use to make the case. And I personally looked at the evidence that was supposed to back up these charges.

ROVE: I also passed on the complaint that Iglesias, in order to get publicity in preparation for a future political campaign, had personally bungled a high-profile corruption case involving the past and current state treasurers by interfering with the career prosecutors who were handling the trial.

IGLESIAS: Bungled? In 2005 I got the biggest fish, former state treasurer Michael Montoya, to plead guilty and cooperate with our investigation. And I got a conviction of the incumbent state treasurer, Robert Vigil, who resigned in lieu of impeachment and was sentenced to 37 months in prison. Now, I didn’t try the case, but I did supervise it. I did get back to back state treasurers to plead guilty or be found guilty at trial.

ROVE: I also forwarded claims that Iglesias had sat for months on an indictment involving charges of corruption by prominent Democrats in the construction of the Bernalillo County Courthouse, refusing to file it until after the 2006 election for fear he would offend prominent Democrats he might need if he ran for the U.S. Senate.

IGLESIAS: That’s a complete fabrication. That indictment didn’t get filed until three weeks after I left office — in March 2007. Look, here’s where Rove’s lack of knowledge of DOJ policy hurts him factually. It’s standing policy that you can’t file an indictment right before an election if you think it will effect the outcome. But I’m sure Rove heard from local Republicans that I was intentionally keeping my powder dry. Even had I been planning a run for the Senate in the 2006 timeframe, I wouldn’t have intentionally withheld an indictment for fear of alienating the Democrats. I’m happy with what I’m doing. I have no plans to run for office.

Mailer sent by CREDO Mobile

Wow. Now that’s some creative marketing. The envelope in the mailbox this morning said, “Thinking of switching to CREDO? That’s not part of Rove’s master plan.”

Inside was a small flyer with a picture of former President Bush’s political strategist, Karl Rove, reading, “Thanks for everything, AT&T! Love, Karl.”

Still confused? I was. On the reverse of the flyer is what appears, at first, to be a letter from Rove — but the reader quickly comes to realize this can’t possibly be real. It thanks AT&T for donating the maximum amount of money to the Bush/Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and for donating to the John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

And then it gets really wild:

“I want to speak directly to those patriotic Americans who are thinking of switching from AT&T: What are you, a socialist?!? When we finally derail the defeatnik in the White House and get back in power, we’re gonna fill up Gitmo with turncoats like you.”

WOW! It’s the kind of message that is very, very specifically targeted to a certain demographic of highly politically aware, liberal (duh), AT&T customers who can appreciate a message so severely sarcastic, satirical and… snarky. Sent out during a week when Rove is splashed all over the news, accused by Democrats of orchestrating the firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons. But it’s a pretty, um, ballsy approach.

Don’t you think?

CREDO is a part of Working Assets, a telecommunications company that donates a percentage of its profits to liberal causes such as ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Planned Parenthood and Defenders of Wildlife. A letter included with the flyer details AT&T and Verizon’s donations to Republicans, as well as Verizon’s decision to block text messages from NARAL Pro-Choice America, and AT&T’s decision to censor Pearl Jam’s criticism of Bush during a webcast of the band’s performance at Lollapalooza.

Many of the questions, of course, focused on the firing of ex-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias.

Our very own state Sen. Rod Adair makes an appearance in the Rove transcripts, and it is simultaneously flattering and unflattering. On the one hand, Rove makes it clear that he’s known Adair for years. On the other hand, he calls him a representative when he’s actually a senator. And then, well, you’ve already seen that quote.

The files released by the House Judiciary Committee include an e-mail from Adair to Rove, in which he says that although GOP attorney Pat Rogers would be “a fantastic choice,” he didn’t want him to be nominated because, as Adair wrote, “he is simply too valuable an asset elsewhere.”

Here’s more from the transcript:

Schiff: If I could direct your attention back to document 58. We discussed the top e-mail from Mr. Jennings to you about our political team wants Bibb, but Domenici doesn’t like him for some reason. The e-mail that precedes that on the same page, you ask Mr. Jennings what is the situation here; and the e-mail preceding that is from Rod Adair to you. And who is Rod Adair?

Rove: State representative that represents Roswell, New Mexico.

Schiff: Have you had a chance to look at this?

Rove: I’m familiar with this one, yes.

Schiff: He makes the case to you that Chuck Peifer would be the wrong pick in this e-mail?

Rove: Yes.

Schiff: He is, in shorthand, a wuss, Mr. Adair says. What do you think he meant by that?

Rove: I believe he says a cowardly wuss, to be appropriate. I think he thinks he would not be a strong U.S. Attorney.

Schiff: He states in the e-mail: “If you’re looking for someone who will follow the law scrupulously, be fair, be honest and be of service to the Nation, all four, even Peifer, would be qualified; none more than Rogers, who better not get it. But if you’re looking for someone who will do all of above and withstand any criticism, stand up to the Ward Churchill, Michael Moore bullies of the world and not worry about criticism for doing his job — I assume this is supposed to be then — Peifer is definitely not the choice.” What did you understand that to mean?

Rove: I understood it to be the expression of a guy who has very strongly held opinions. You may remember what I do with this is, I tell Mr. Adair he ought to make his preferences known to Senator Domenici and the congressional delegation. He has a habit of making an end run around the people involved in the process, and I pointed him back to the people he ought to make his opinions known to.

Schiff: So did you have a conversation with him after getting this e-mail?

Rove: I can’t remember whether I — I think I’d do it through an e-mail, because I think I’m trying to avoid being drawn into a phone conversation with — my recollection is that there is an e-mail, I suspect we can find it for you — in which I say basically, You need to go talk to your Senator and your congressional delegation.

Schiff: Who is Ward Churchill?

Rove: Ward Churchill is a professor at the University of Colorado who was involved in a controversy involving 9/11 where he suggested that the victims of 9/11 got what they deserved. Michael Moore is a well-known documentary maker.

Schiff: And so was he expressing the view to you here that Mr. Peifer would be — would follow the law scrupulously, be fair, be honest, be of service to the Nation but wouldn’t be willing to take on basically the Michael Moores and the Ward Churchills of the world?

Rove: I think he would say withstand any criticism and stand up to the bullies of the world. So I think he is implying here that he would be a strong individual who would not wither in the face of left-wing criticism. I know you’re attaching great attention to this. I again repeat, I sent him to Senator Domenici and the Congressman, because while he is a State senator and I have known him for a number of years, he is a man with strong opinions, strongly expressed, and this was an end run, and I wanted him to go back in the process. I didn’t need a state Senator from Roswell, New Mexico opining about who the U.S. Attorney ought to be when this is going to be largely the province of the United States Senator who is going to give us a list of recommendations.

Schiff: He goes on to explain to you about the campaigns he has run for the GOP in the same e-mail, right?

Rove: Yes.

Schiff: And this is a way of demonstrating his bona fides about knowing what is good for the Republican Party?

Rove: No. I think it is just bragging on his recent election success. I have known him a number of years. I don’t think he needs to establish his bona fides with me. This is just passing on the success of the most recently — in the election that ended 2 months before.

Schiff: Was this lobbying by Mr. Adair and Mr. Weh in part the result of their feeling that Mr. Iglesias was not sufficiently partisan?

Rove: You would have to ask them what their motivations were. I doubt it, but you would have to ask them.

Schiff: Did Mr. Weh and Mr. Adair ever express to you that they wanted someone who would be more partisan in contrast to Mr. Iglesias?

Rove: Not that I recall. This is the not the only contact I had, I believe, with Mr. Adair and I do not recall any such implication in Mr. Weh’s conversation.

And then, later, this exchange:

Schiff: Did Mr. Weh and Mr. Adair ever express to you that they wanted someone who would be more partisan in contrast to Mr. Iglesias?

Rove: Not that I recall. This is the not the only contact I had, I believe, with Mr. Adair and I do not recall any such implication in Mr. Weh’s conversation.

Schiff: From the Michael Moores and the Ward Churchills?

Rove: From left wingers, yes.

Schiff: So let me go back to my original question, then. Mr. Weh passes on to your office of OPA a blog that says that Bibb would be a bigger thorn in the State (sic) of the side Ds. Mr. Adair passes on to you his feedback that Mr. Peifer would follow the law, be fair, be honest and be of service, but would be unwilling to stand up to the lefties. Was there any other information that you received that you recommended be passed on to people who would be in a position to influence the selection of U.S. Attorney with any other kind of criteria?

And at that point, Rove’s attorney points out that the e-mail was actually sent to Jennings, not to Rove, and the questioning moves on in another direction.

Rove, the former political adviser to President George W. Bush, told the Times that he played a small role in the controversial 2006 firing of nine US Attorneys, but said he passed on to the White House complaints about Iglesias that came from the office of former Sen. Pete Domenici.

From the story:

Mr. Rove’s e-mail messages showed he received a number of messages with reports of political corruption cases and complaints about prosecutors, sometimes through direct contacts with staff members for legislators like Pete V. Domenici, a Republican who was a senator from New Mexico.

Mr. Domenici and his aides complained repeatedly about David C. Iglesias, one of the prosecutors who was dismissed.

“I was the recipient of complaints,” Mr. Rove said, referring to Mr. Iglesias, “I passed them on to Harriet Miers to pass on to the Justice Department.”

Mr. Rove said he did not personally verify the criticism but said if true, “it’s really troublesome.”

Iglesias had been the subject of criticism from New Mexico Republicans who believed he did not aggressively pursue allegations of voter fraud.

As Rove told the Times:

He also said he had expressed an interest in the issue of voter fraud as a policy matter but did not ask the Justice Department about specific cases, although he sometimes passed on reports of voting irregularities to the White House counsel’s office.

“I am concerned about voter fraud,” he said, noting that it was “far more of a problem and widespread” than has been acknowledged. “It always mystified me why the issue was not a higher priority for the Justice Department. I never got a satisfactory answer.

In its item, TPM reminded its readers that Rogers had figured in the federal Department of Justice report released in September that gave a blistering critique on the department’s handling of the U.S. Attorney firings.

But Rogers was adamant on Monday when he told the Independent that voter fraud likely is occurring in New Mexico. And he referred to last week’s GOP press conference that produced evidence he called convincing.

State Republicans last week said their search of public records for 92 newly registered Albuquerque voters who cast ballots in the June primary uncovered “highly suspect” voter registrations on file in 28 of those cases. They called it “bombshell” evidence of voting fraud. The party provided names for 10 of the 28 suspect registrations and said five of those 10 were registrations submitted by ACORN.

One of them has a social security number that is being used by three other people, GOP officials said. And another has a Social Security number that was issued before the voter in question was born.

“These are highly suspect forms,” Rogers said. “We have evidence that demands immediate and thorough investigation.”

Claims of “voter suppression and racism are being used to avoid responsibility for the dishonest activities of ACORN,” Rogers said.

ACORN, for its part, on Saturday brought forward two of the five voters the GOP said ACORN had registered and who had highly suspicious registration forms.  ACORN officials said they contacted two of the other registered voters and said they were real as well.

But call TPM skeptical of Rogers’ contention. Rogers’ involvement in the Iglesias scandal prompted TPM to write:

In other words, one of the very same New Mexico GOP activists who was found in the OIG report to have tried to pressure David Iglesias to bring bogus voter-fraud prosecutions is still on the case, and has now helped to get a new federal investigation launched just weeks before the election.
And remember: the OIG report definitively concluded that Iglesias was fired as New Mexico’s US attorney for his reluctance to follow up on politically motivated voter-fraud claims, made by local Republicans including Rogers.

 
The federal investigation TPM refers to is the 1,400 registration forms the FBI is reviewing. Meanwhile, the DOJ report TPM references was produced by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and dedicates an entire chapter to former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, who was fired for, among other reasons, not pursuing voter fraud claims with enough gusto. Rogers figures prominently in that chapter as the authors of the DOJ report revisit his involvement in pushing voter registration fraud claims, which included ACORN, leading up to the 2004 general election and his pressure on then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. The DOJ report goes on to report that Rogers, among other New Mexico Republicans, continued to complain about voter fraud in New Mexico and complained to DOJ officials about what they perceived as Iglesias’s lack of movement on prosecuting such cases. At one point, the report says, Rogers and another prominent Republican, Mickey Barnett, met with the Department of Justice’s White House liaison Monica Goodling in Washington in June 2006 to complain about Iglesias’ record on voter fraud.

Several months later, Iglesias found himself out of a job as U.S. Attorney.

According to the report, Wilson told investigators she attended a White House breakfast meeting Nov. 15, 2006. As the meeting broke up, Wilson said she approached President Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove and said, “Mr. Rove, for what it’s worth, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico is a waste of breath.”

Rove responded, “That decision has already been made. He’s gone.” According to Wilson’s calendar, the meeting occurred from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., the report says.

Department e-mail records show that the then chief of staff for then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, sent a plan that first included Iglesias’ name for firing to then-White House Counsel Harriett Miers two hours later —  at 10:55 a.m. Nov. 16. There is no record of the list being provided to the White House before then.

The report, released Monday and full of such nuggets, severely criticized how the Department of Justice handled the U.S. attorney firings in 2006. Iglesias’ firing alone received its own 50-page chapter, the longest for any U.S. attorney fired. Also coming in for criticism were Wilson and U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., whose calls to Justice officials to complain about Iglesias were cited as the primary reason for Iglesias’ removal in the report.

Domenici’s office declined to comment and referred media inquiries to the senator’s Washington lawyer, Lee Blalack, who disputed the report’s conclusions as “innuendos that pass as findings” and said that Domenici already had been cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee on the allegations dealt with in the report.

Wilson’s office, meanwhile, released a statement in which she called the report “incorrect and incomplete.” She also said in the statement “The report released today confirms that the Justice Department never investigated complaints about Mr. Iglesias’ job performance and badly mishandled his termination.”

The report was compiled by the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility.

While the report was lengthy, its authors said they had failed to uncover every bit of information surrounding the scandal and criminal violations might be found to have occurred if more digging were done.

“We believe that the evidence collected in this investigation is not complete, and that serious allegations involving potential criminal conduct have not been fully investigated or resolved,” the authors said.

For that reason, they recommended the appointment of a special prosecutor and suggested that this counsel should consider whether Kyle Sampson, former chief of staff to Gonzales, or other department officials “made false statements to Congress or to us about the reasons for the removal of Iglesias or other U.S. Attorneys.”

Iglesias, for his part, in an interview with the New Mexico Independent said he felt “completely vindicated” by the report, which was more than a year in the making. He added “I am not surprised at all they have referred it to a criminal prosecutor.”

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a federal prosecutor — acting U.S. Attorney of Connecticut Nora Dannehy — to open a new probe into the firings to determine if criminal charges could be brought against Gonzales, among others.

Iglesias said some of the statutes that might be involved in the criminal inquiry going forward were interfering with ongoing investigation, conspiracy and wire fraud.

Iglesias’ firing occurred after top Republicans in New Mexico complained to the White House and to top Justice Department officials about how the U.S. Attorney’s office was mishandling voter fraud investigations. They also complained about that he was moving too slowly on corruption investigations.

Another more well-publicized chapter in the saga of U.S. attorney firings was revisited in the inquiry. That involved Domenici’s and Wilson’s phone calls to Iglesias weeks before the 2006 mid-term elections in which each asked about the progress of a federal corruption investigation involving Albuquerque’s metro courthouse.

Among the findings in Monday’s report were that Domenici’s three calls to Gonzales, as well as a fourth call to Gonzales’ top aide, to complain about Iglesias’ performance “was the primary factor” in Iglesias’ firing. The report also appeared to suggest Domenici had tried to interfere with an ongoing federal investigation by calling Iglesias.

Blalack said in his letter that “there is no credible basis” to suggest that Sen. Domenici’s phone call to Iglesias in the fall of 2006 to ask about an ongoing courthouse corruption investigation rose to the level of interfering with or obstructing any ongoing investigation. Blalack also disputed the investigators’ contention that Domenici did not cooperate with the inquiry, saying in his letter “the Senator offered on several occasion to answer your questions in writing through counsel.” Blalack added that “you rejected the Senator’s offer of assistance.”

While Domenici ultimately did not speak to  investigators, Wilson cooperated, agreeing to three interviews. Other prominent Republicans were approached by investigators, including New Mexico Republican Party Chairman Allen Wehand prominent GOP lawyer Micky Barnett. Weh spoke with investigators, while Barnett supplied documents. Another prominent Republican lawyer, Pat Rogers, however, notified investigators through his attorney that he would not cooperate, according to the report. The report also says Domenici’s chief of staff, Steve Bell, declined to be interviewed.

The report did not let off Iglesias without a chastisement for not reporting the phone calls from Domenici and Wilson in the fall of 2006. But the vast majority of the report lambasted the Justice Department, and its top officials, for how they handled the U.S. attorney firings. In addition to Iglesias, eight other U.S. Attorneys were let go in 2006, a historic act by a president. But it was Iglesias who became the poster boy for the scandal. Since his name became identified with the scandal, he has appeared on TV, in magazines and newspapers repeatedly to tell his story. He even regaled locals at an Albuquerque bookstore this May with bits of his story.

The Justice Department report revisited many facts that are already well known publicly, such as Iglesias’ hiring, his two positive job reviews in 2002 and 2005, and the steady erosion of confidence top New Mexico Republicans had in him as a prosecutor.

Ultimately, the report concluded that Iglesias was removed because of complaints to the Department and the White House by Senator Domenici and other New Mexico Republican political officials, not for reasons given publicly. All other reasons offered after Iglesias’s removal “– that he was an ‘absentee landlord,’ that he delegated too much authority to his First Assistant, and that he was an underperformer – were after-the-fact rationalizations that did not actually contribute to his removal.”

The report’s authors also found that the Department never investigated the complaints lodged against Iglesias’ handling of “voter fraud or public corruption cases, or even asked Iglesias about them.” And in not investigating those complaints, the authors wrote, “Department leaders abdicated their responsibility to ensure that prosecutorial decisions would be based on the law, the evidence, and Department policy, rather than political pressure.”

The report appeared to knock down several reasons given for Iglesias’ firing.

One reason given in a back-door meeting for Iglesias’ firing was that he was considered an “absentee landlord,” meaning he wasn’t a strong manager and tended to over-delegate. But the report shows that DOJ executives either didn’t know where the allegation came from or they pinned it on someone who later refuted it.

David Margolis, the highest career attorney at the Justice Department, told then-White House liaison Monica Goodling after hearing the allegation that Iglesias was an absentee landlord that it had been “corroborated” by New Mexico First Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Gomez. That had occurred, Margolis said, when Gomez interviewed with Margolis and Goodling for Iglesias’ vacant U.S. Attorney position,” but after Iglesias had been removed.

The report lays out the timeline:

According to Margolis, when he interviewed Gomez for the vacant U.S. Attorney position, Gomez explained his qualifications for the U.S. Attorney position by noting that he ran the day-to-day operations of the office. Margolis told investigators that he thought that Gomez’s statement that he ran the day-to-day operations of the office “corroborated” the allegation that Iglesias was an absentee landlord. However, Margolis also told investigators that Gomez said nothing negative about Iglesias during his interview.

Yet, Gomez told congressional investigators that he did not think that Iglesias over-delegated authority or was an absentee landlord.

The investigators concluded “that the allegation that Iglesias was an absentee manager who had delegated too much authority to his First Assistant was an after-the-fact justification for Iglesias’s termination and was not in fact a reason he was placed on the removal list.”

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’ 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.

The report also said that complaints by Wilson of voter fraud  were dismissed. She had complained of voter fraud among newly registered voters because forms had been returned as undeliverable. The “FBI ultimately determined that the correspondence from her office to newly registered voters had been returned as undeliverable because of incomplete addresses on voter registration cards, errors made by Wilson’s office in addressing the envelopes, or because the voters, many of whom were college students, had changed addresses since registering…. ,” the report said.

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.”

The new report dedicates about 50 pages to the firing of Iglesias. Many of the facts are known, but it makes for some compelling reading. A few facts may be worth repeating too. 

Like the fact that U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici called former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales three times to complain about Iglesias and once placed a call to one of Gonzales’ top deputies, Paul McNulty. Yet those complaints were never given as a reason for Iglesias’ name winding up on a removal list in the fall of 2006.

When testifying before Congress, McNulty said that Iglesias was “under-performing”; was an “absentee landlord,” who was out of the office a fair amount of time and who relied on the First Assistant U.S. Attorney to run the office; and The Department had received congressional complaints about Iglesias.

Later McNulty confirmed to investigators that he did not mention Senator Domenici in this congressional briefing.

 

McNulty said that he did not want to refer to Domenici because he was “concerned about . . . putting the Senator in a bad light or in a difficult position” and that he wanted to keep his conversation with Domenici “confidential . . . . It was just a courtesy.” In her written testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, (DOJ’s White House liaison Monica) Goodling, the Department’s White House Liaison, also stated that Domenici’s complaints about Iglesias were omitted from the list of reasons for Iglesias’s removal at McNulty’s suggestion.

On the absentee landlord matter, McNulty and another DOJ executive testified that:

 

they did not know the basis for the allegations that Iglesias was an absentee landlord or that he overly delegated authority.

A DOJ executive told Goodling after hearing the allegation that Iglesias was an absentee landlord that it had been “corroborated” by New Mexico First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gomez when
he interviewed with Margolis and Goodling for Iglesias’s vacant U.S. Attorney
position,” but after Iglesias had been removed.

But Gomez told congressional investigators “that he did not think that Iglesias over-delegated authority or was an absentee landlord.”

The investigators concluded “that the allegation that Iglesias was an absentee manager who had delegated too much authority to his First Assistant was an after-the-fact justification for Iglesias’s termination and was not in fact a reason he was placed on the removal list.”

The investigators, who said their inquiry was not complete did include this caveat:

It is important to note that our investigation into Iglesias’s removal was hampered, and is not complete, because key witnesses declined to cooperate with our investigation. In particular, former White House officials Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, both of whom appear to have significant first-hand knowledge regarding Iglesias’s dismissal, refused our requests for an interview even though the White House Counsel’s Office informed them both, as it did all current and former White House staff who we wanted to interview, that the Counsel’s Office encouraged them to cooperate with our investigation and submit to an interview.

In addition, Senator Domenici and his Chief of Staff, Steve Bell, also declined to be interviewed by us. Domenici initially told us through his counsel that he would be “pleased to assist” our investigation once a pending Senate Ethics Committee investigation of his phone call to Iglesias was completed. We renewed our requests for interviews after the Senate ethics inquiry was concluded. Bell continued to decline to be interviewed. Domenici also declined to be interviewed, but said he would provide written answers to questions through his attorney. We declined this offer because we did not believe it would be a reliable or appropriate investigative method under these circumstances. In contrast, Representative Wilson cooperated with our investigation and was interviewed by us three separate times.

 And there’s more.