Senate Ethics Committee Intensifies Domenici Probe

The US Senate Select Committee on Ethics has stepped up its probe of Pete Domenici, the Republican senator from New Mexico, who allegedly pressured David Iglesias, the former US attorney in that state, to return an indictment against a local Democratic official who was the target of a corruption investigation prior to the 2006 midterm elections.

Over the past couple of weeks, the Ethics Committee has been interviewing witnesses - including staffers from the US attorney's office in New Mexico - who were privy to a phone call Domenici made to Iglesias last November in which he asked the former federal prosecutor about the timing of an indictment against Manny Aragon, a prominent former New Mexico state senator and the subject of a federal corruption probe, according to the senior staffers. Congressional ethics rules prohibit lawmakers from contacting federal agency officials during ongoing probes.

Iglesias is one of at least eight US attorneys who were fired last December. He believes his termination was due in part to his staunch refusal to allow investigations he had undertaken to be politicized in order to swing the November 2006 midterm elections toward Republicans.

According to some senior staffers working for lawmakers who sit on the Ethics Committee, the six-month preliminary investigation into Domenici has turned up enough evidence to open a formal, public investigation into the New Mexico senator, having determined that Domenici acted inappropriately and that he may have violated Senate Ethics rules when he called Iglesias to ask whether Aragon would be indicted before the state's voters went to the polls last year.

But it's unclear if the Ethics Committee will end up launching a formal probe. A sticking point, Ethics Committee staffers say, is the long-standing "ethics truce" between Democrats and Republicans that dates back to the mid-1990s where lawmakers from both political parties agreed not to file ethics complaints against each other.

The senate staffers requested anonymity because ethics rules prohibit them from discussing the status of ongoing investigations publicly. A spokesman for the Senate Ethics Committee said he could not comment on the course of the preliminary investigation.

Lee Blalack, the high-powered Washington, DC attorney defending Domenici, said Wednesday he knew of no "pending criticism" against Domenici nor was he aware of the status of the ethics inquiry into the senator. Domenici's office did not return calls for comment.

Contacted Wednesday at his home in Albuquerque, Iglesias said he could not comment on any aspect of the ethics probe.

Domenici admitted he called Iglesias before the midterm elections and apologized for any appearance of inappropriate behavior. However, Domenici said he "never pressured him [Iglesias] nor threatened him in any way."

"In retrospect, I regret making the phone call and I apologize," Domenici said in a prepared statement in March. "However, at no time in that conversation or any other conversation with Mr. Iglesias did I ever tell him what course of action I thought he should take on any legal matter."

The House Ethics Committee, meanwhile, is continuing to pursue its preliminary investigation into similar claims that Rep. Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico), by making similar phone calls to Iglesias last year inquiring about a sealed indictment against Aragon, may have violated House ethics rules. Wilson phoned Iglesias about two weeks before Domenici called the former federal prosecutor. The House Ethics Committee interviewed Iglesias in July about the substance of the phone call he received from Wilson last year.

Bill O'Reilly, a spokesman for the House Ethics Committee, said House rules prohibited him from commenting on active investigations.

Iglesias testified before Congress in March that his refusal to provide Wilson and Domenici with details of his investigations played a role in his firing last December.

"I felt leaned on," Iglesias told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in March. "I felt pressure to get these matters moving."

On November 7, 2006, Election Day, two weeks after Domenici called Iglesias about the status of an indictment against Aragon, Iglesias's name was added to a list of US attorneys the Justice Department (DOJ) planned to fire. Publicly, DOJ officials said the firings were based on inadequate job performance, despite the fact the federal prosecutors had impeccable employee evaluations.

In interviews with Truthout earlier this year, three of the US attorneys who were fired said they were pressured by DOJ officials and Republican lawmakers to bring criminal charges against Democrats in voter fraud and corruption cases prior to the 2006 midterm elections. Some of the other US attorneys who were fired were in the middle of investigating allegations of corruption against Republican members of the Senate and Congress.

The individual or individuals responsible for creating the so-called list remains unknown, but there has been widespread speculation on the part of some of the US attorneys who were fired that former White House political adviser Karl Rove was responsible for drafting.

Iglesias was notified of his termination on December 7, 2006, about six weeks after the telephone calls Iglesias received from Wilson and Domenici.

When told that Iglesias was fired, Domenici's chief of staff said he was "happy as a clam" about the news. A week later, Domenici submitted a list of names of individuals to replace Iglesias. That prompted a former Justice Department official who resigned in the wake of a Congressional probe into the firings to say to a colleague via email that the senator wasn't "even waiting for Iglesias's body to cool."

Wilson has publicly acknowledged she phoned Iglesias last year to inquire about ongoing probes involving Democrats, but she disputed Iglesias's characterization the phone calls were meant to pressure the former US attorney to secure indictments prior to the election. Wilson also denied her inquires played a part in Igesias's dismissal.

Iglesias testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March that he received a phone call from Wilson while he was in Washington, DC dealing with Justice Department matters. Wilson's phone call, Iglesias said, came two weeks before Domenici telephoned him at home. He said the call was brief. Wilson had started the conversation with some small talk and then queried him about the status of sealed indictments.

"She asked me, 'what can you tell me about sealed indictments?'" Iglesias said. "The second she said any question about sealed indictments, red flags went up in my head, We specifically cannot talk about indictments until they are made public in general. It's like calling up a [nuclear] scientist ... to talk about those secret codes. The launch codes."

Iglesias said he was "evasive" and "nonresponsive" to Wilson's questions.

Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for Truthout.

Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran.

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