In an interview with the McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman of the New Mexico GOP had asked Karl Rove to dispose of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias because he was not prosecuting Democrats over a possible voter fraud incident. This poses a big problem to the White House and the Justice Department because so far they have claimed no involvement in the purge other than selecting the new attorneys.
From McClatchy:
In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.
"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.
"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.
"I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,'" said Weh.
Weh's account calls into question the Justice Department's stance that the recent decision to fire Iglesias and seven U.S. attorneys in other states was a personnel matter - made without White House intervention. Justice Department officials have said the White House's involvement was limited to approving a list of the U.S. attorneys after the Justice Department made the decision to fire them.
Now we have more damning evidence that the White House was personally involved and that Gonzales, having known the full story of the matter, did in fact lie to Congress when he said that the firings were not political. On top of this confession, we also have Rep. Heather Wilson and Sen. Pete Dominici admitting to talking to Iglesias about prosecuting certain political cases last year right before the midterm elections. As the pieces of the puzzles continue to fall in place, it is becoming crystal clear that there was serious foul play involved, from the White House on down to the state party apparatus.
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