Six fired U.S. attorneys testified on Capitol Hill yesterday that they had separately been the target of complaints, improper telephone calls and thinly veiled threats from a high-ranking Justice Department official or members of Congress, both before and after they were abruptly removed from their jobs.In back-to-back hearings in the Senate and House, former U.S. attorney David C. Iglesias of New Mexico and five other former prosecutors recounted specific instances in which some said they felt pressured by Republicans on corruption cases and one said a Justice Department official warned him to keep quiet or face retaliation.
Iglesias's allegations of congressional interference have prompted a Senate ethics committee inquiry. Yesterday he offered new details about telephone calls he received in October from Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) and Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.), saying he felt "leaned on" and "sickened" by the contacts seeking information about an investigation of a local Democrat.
Another former prosecutor, John McKay of Seattle, alleged for the first time that he received a call from the chief of staff to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), asking about an inquiry into vote-fraud charges in the state's hotly contested 2004 gubernatorial election. McKay said he cut the call short.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
The investigation into the purge of prosecutors
Continues apace. Elementary, Watson!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Please please please let it happen. Could use a little good news.
I think this has legs. These were Republicans who were run over and chewed up by the neocon machine and I think they're pissed.
(At least a few were Republicans, I don't know about all of them.)
Any time you expect a republican to do anything even vaguely honorable or just, you're heading for disappointment.
Joking aside, what HAS happened to the good Republicans? Where are they? Are they so stunned by their party being hijacked by neocons they can't say anything? Have they been savagely mocked for being a 'centrist' or a placater, so now won't say anything? Are they hiding, waiting for the winds to change?
Where are they?
Post a Comment