Last week, in an interview with the Albuquerque Tribune, purged U.S. Attorney David Iglesias said, “I think all roads lead to Rove. I think that’s why the president is circling some pretty major wagons around him to keep him from testifying under oath, which subjects him to criminal prosecution.”
Iglesias appears to be onto something.
Nearly half the U.S. attorneys slated for removal by the administration last year were targets of Republican complaints that they were lax on voter fraud, including efforts by presidential adviser Karl Rove to encourage more prosecutions of election- law violations, according to new documents and interviews.
Of the 12 U.S. attorneys known to have been dismissed or considered for removal last year, five were identified by Rove or other administration officials as working in districts that were trouble spots for voter fraud — Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; New Mexico; Nevada; and Washington state. Four of the five prosecutors in those districts were dismissed.
It has been clear for months that the administration’s eagerness to launch voter-fraud prosecutions played a role in some of the firings, but recent testimony, documents and interviews show the issue was more central than previously known. The new details include the names of additional prosecutors who were targeted and other districts that were of concern, as well as previously unknown information about the White House’s role.
Much of this probably seems like old news — we’ve known for a while that prosecutors who neglected to file trumped up “voter fraud” cases got fired — but this WaPo story a) adds Nevada’s Daniel Bogden to the mix; and b) connects the move to Karl Rove in a new way.
Dan Froomkin explained the big picture very well.
Why would Karl Rove want to fire a bunch of U.S. attorneys?
If you think it seems out of character, you don’t know Rove — or more precisely, you don’t know the two sides of Rove. President Bush’s powerful adviser is one part spreadsheet-carrying, vote-counting political wonk, and one part no-holds-barred, brass-knuckled political operative.
Vote-counting Rove knows that — particularly in battleground states, where a few votes can make all the difference — every little bit helps. Brass-knuckled Rove has energetically used government power to meet political ends.
Vote-counting Rove has long been obsessed by voter fraud, either because (according to him) it threatens the integrity of the elections process or because (according to his critics) it gives Republicans an excuse to pursue measures that suppress poor and minority turnout. They also disagree on whether fraud is widespread (Rove) or rare (his critics).
And it’s not hard to believe that brass-knuckled Rove decided at some point that politically appointed federal prosecutors were important tools in his bag of tricks — tools that occasionally needed a little sharpening, or replacement.
And Paul Kiel summarizes the details.
When Justice Department official Matthew Friedrich — following up on Karl Rove’s request last October to investigate voter fraud allegations in three jurisdictions (Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New Mexico) — called Benton Campbell, chief of staff for the Criminal Division, Campbell told him that Nevada was also “a problem district.”
It’s not clear from the Post’s account whether Friedrich brought this news back to Kyle Sampson or whether word of Nevada’s “problem” made it back to the White House. But what we do know now is that there’s reason to believe that displeasure with a lack of voter fraud prosecutions was behind at least four of the nine prosecutors fired last year. Somehow, all four were in battleground states.
Put that together with the Justice Department’s efforts to install U.S. attorneys who are gung-ho about voter fraud prosecutions and the picture becomes clearer.
And speaking of Rove and his up-to-his-ears-in-scandal office, has anyone heard about any progress in forcing this guy to testify? It seemed like some talks were underway weeks ago, with both sides hoping to avoid a subpoena fight. Congress wanted testimony, while the White House wanted a private “interview” with no transcript and no oath.
This seems to have fallen off the radar a bit. If Dems were waiting for a news peg to force the issue, today’s WaPo piece seems like a good place to start.