Fired attorney: Rove, Gonzales resignations 'absolutely linked'

[unhappycamper]

Fired attorney: Rove, Gonzales resignations 'absolutely linked'
David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Published: Monday August 27, 2007


Like President Bush's top political adviser, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned to avoid encroaching Congressional investigations, a fired federal prosecutor said Monday.

During an appearance on CNN, former US Attorney David Iglesias said Gonzales's resignation is "absolutely linked with Karl Rove leaving two weeks ago," and speculated the two resigned "for the same reason": Congressional investigators closing in on their suspected roles in the attorney-firing scandal.

"This is what happens when there is not check and balance" under a Republican-controlled Congress and White House "and all of a sudden you have a new sheriff in town - so to speak - that wants answers to hard questions."

Due to obstruction by Gonzales and other Bush officials, Iglesias added, the extent of the White House's attempt to have politically inconvenient prosecutors fired remains unknown. "We still don't know who put our names on that list," he said. The former US Attorney for New Mexico contends that he was fired after two Congressional Republicans - Sen. Pete Dominici and Rep. Heather Wilson - urged him to speed indictments of a Democratic state senator before the election.

"What triggered this was Attorney General Alberto Gonzales going in front of the US Senate and not being fully candid, telling half truths (and) having very convenient memory lapses," Iglesias said Monday. "Had he shot straight with the American people and shot straight with the Senate, perhaps a lot of this would've been mitigated."

The Justice Department's credibility has sunk to Nixon-era levels under Gonzales's soon-to-end tenure, Iglesias charged. "I'm not aware of the Justice Department losing so many top people, probably since ... the early 70s during the Watergate scandal," he said.

video at end of linked article