Concern over vote fraud led to Iglesia's firing
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October 3, 2008
After receiving numerous complaints from Republican activists that David Iglesias did not prosecute individuals for voter fraud before the 2006 midterm elections, President George W. Bush and Karl Rove, the former White House political adviser, both appear to have aided in the firing of the former New Mexico U.S. Attorney.[1]
Department of Justice's internal watchdog
The 356-page report is the result of an 18-month joint investigation by Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine and the head of the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility H. Marshall Jarrett. The report stated that Iglesias's firing was very "controversial" and that his dismissal was "engineered" by New Mexico GOP lawmakers Sen. Pete Domenici, Congresswoman Heather Wilson and former White House political adviser Karl Rove, over complaints about Iglesias's refusal to secure indictments in voter fraud cases and in a public corruption case.
Conflicting Evidence
Many experts believe raising questions of voter fraud can be a Republican ploy to suppress the poor and minority vote, which often leans Democrat. Leading up to the 2004 presidential election, Bernalillo County in New Mexico was the target of a large-scale grassroots effort by the group ACORN to register voters. That led New Mexico GOP to challenge the integrity of some of the names on the voter registration rolls, wherin Iglesias began an investigation. "Due to the high volume of suspected criminal activity, I believed there to be a strong likelihood of uncovering prosecutable cases," Iglesias said. "I also reviewed the hard copy file from the last voter fraud case my office had prosecuted which dated back to 1992. My intention was to file prosecutions in order to send a message that voter fraud or election fraud would not be tolerated in the District of New Mexico. After examining the evidence, and in conjunction with the Justice Department Election Crimes Unit and the FBI, I could not find any cases I could prosecute beyond a reasonable doubt," Iglesias said in an interview. "Accordingly, I did not authorize any voter fraud related prosecutions." In several interviews, Iglesias said that Republican officials in his state were far less interested in election reforms and more intent on suppressing votes. He stated that the Justice Department issued a directive to every U.S. Attorney in the country to find and prosecute cases of voter fraud in their states during the height of hotly contested elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006, even though evidence of such abuses was extremely thin or non-existent.[1]
Bush Agenda and the Justice Department
Iglesias said in late summer 2002 he received an email from the Department of Justice suggesting "in no uncertain terms" that U.S. attorneys should immediately begin working with local and state election officials "to offer whatever assistance we could in investigating and prosecuting voter fraud cases."
"The e-mail imperatives came again in 2004 and 2006, by which time I had learned that far from being standard operating procedure for the Justice Department, the emphasis on voter irregularities was unique to the Bush administration," Iglesias said.[1]
"Not only did the [Bush] administration stoop to such seamy expedients to press its agenda in 2004," Iglesias wrote. "It had the full might and authority of the federal government and its prosecutorial powers to accomplish its ends."[1]
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Scoop Independent News: "Concerns Over Voter Fraud Led to Iglesias’s Firing," Oct 3, 2008
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