early and often

New Documents: Rove Point Man in ’06 Dismissal

Despite years of denials by the Bush administration that strategist Karl Rove had a hand in the controversial dismissal of nine federal prosecutors in 2006, new documents and testimony surfaced yesterday revealing pretty plainly that Rove had a key role in at least one of them. As part of recent investigations into the matter, thousands of pages of e-mails and a secret congressional testimony were released. In them, e-mails from Rove surfaced regarding U.S. Attorney David Iglesias in New Mexico, with whom Rove was “agitated” over not going after local Democrats in voting fraud and corruption cases. In June 2005, for example, one of his top aides wrote an e-mail saying that Iglesias had to be fired because the New Mexico GOP was “really angry over his lack of action on voter fraud stuff.” The staffer lamented, “We are getting killed out there.” Rove also called Bush lawyer Harriet Miers about it. “It was clear to me that he felt like he has a serious problem and that he wanted something done about it,” she testified. “I remember his being upset.” Iglesias, for his part, was outraged. “The amount of backstabbing and treachery involved is just breathtaking,” he told the Times. “It’s astounding that without reviewing the evidence or talking to the F.B.I. or anything, the White House would assume that these were provable cases and that I needed to file them for the political benefit of the party. That’s not what U.S. attorneys do.”

E-Mail Reveals Rove’s Key Role in ’06 Dismissals [NYT]

New Documents: Rove Point Man in ’06 Dismissal