U.S. attorneys’ firings raising brows

WASHINGTON – The probe into the Bush administration’s firings of U.S. attorneys intensified Monday as lawmakers ordered two more ousted officials to tell their stories and the Justice Department said Republican Sen. Pete Domenici had complained repeatedly to the attorney general about one prosecutor.

A second lawmaker from New Mexico, GOP Rep. Heather Wilson, acknowledged that she, too, had complained to the same prosecutor about the slow pace of an investigation. Like Domenici, she denied pressuring the U.S. attorney in her state.

The administration has said eight prosecutors were told to leave, all but one for performance-related reasons. However, Democrats have suggested ever more pointedly that politics was behind many of the dismissals, and the Domenici revelation fueled that idea.

Six of those fired, meanwhile, issued a stiff defense of their conduct and implied that they had had differences with Justice Department officials in Washington.

“We leave with no regrets, because we served well and upheld the best traditions of the Department of Justice,” the group said in a joint statement released in advance of a Tuesday hearing by a House subcommittee.

The Justice Department, besieged by charges of cronyism, acknowledged that lawmakers – both Republican and Democratic – had complained about several of the eight.

One, David Iglesias, of New Mexico, was the subject of four phone calls from Domenici to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his deputy questioning whether the prosecutor was “up to the job,” department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.

It’s unclear whether Iglesias was aware of the senator’s calls to the Justice Department, but he knew of Domenici’s interest in his work. Domenici said over the weekend that he had called the prosecutor in October 2006 to ask about the progress of a probe into an alleged Democratic kickback scheme.

Iglesias has said he received calls from two lawmakers – he has not named them publicly – who inquired about the case. He said that he felt pressured by them to rush indictments before the November elections.

Domenici has apologized for the call while denying he put any pressure on Iglesias. The Senate ethics manual advises lawmakers to refrain from speaking to court officers about specific proceedings until after they are resolved.

Wilson said Monday she contacted Iglesias but did not pressure him to speed up the investigation.

In a statement released to the Washington Post, Wilson said: “I did not ask about the timing of any indictments and I did not tell Mr. Iglesias what course of action I thought he should take or pressure him in any way. The conversation was brief and professional.”

She said the department dismissed Iglesias “without input from me.”