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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Domenici Hires Top Attorney for Ethics Investigation Domenici Hires Top Attorney for Ethics Investigation By Paul Kane and Dan Eggen Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) has hired a top defense attorney to handle the pending ethics investigation into allegations that he pressured a federal prosecutor to bring indictments against New Mexico Democrats on the eve of the 2006 elections. Lee Blalack, who recently represented former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), who is now serving time in prison for bribery and other offenses, said today that he has signed on as Domenici's attorney in the wake of allegations from fired U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias. Iglesias alleged that Domenici phoned him at his home and asked about a pending public corruption investigation. The Senate Ethics Committee announced Monday that it has opened a preliminary inquiry into the matter, which will examine Iglesias's and Domenici's differing accounts of the phone call. In dramatic testimony before House and Senate committees yesterday, Iglesias, the recently ousted U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, said Domenici's chief of staff placed the call on Oct. 26 or Oct. 27. The aide indicated to Iglesias that there were complaints about how the prosecutor was handling a corruption investigation into a courthouse construction project involving Democrats. The aide handed off the phone to Domenici, who, according to Iglesias, directly asked whether indictments would be handed up before the election. "Are these going to be filed before November?" Domenici asked, according to Iglesias. When Iglesias said no, Domenici responded, "I'm sorry to hear that," and hung up, the prosecutor said. He said the call left him feeling "sick" because he felt he was being pressured to speed up the case. Iglesias said the call came less than two weeks after Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) phoned Iglesias and asked whether he had any "sealed indictments" in the case. Wilson has said she did not ask Iglesias about "the timing of any indictments" and did not "tell Mr. Iglesias what course of action I thought he should take or pressure him in any way." Domenici released a statement Tuesday evening corroborating the overall nature of the call, but he adamantly denied that he mentioned the November elections. He reiterated his previous stance that he in no way pressured Iglesias on any case. He has apologized for asking about a pending investigation. Iglesias spoke yesterday at a pair of Congressional hearings examining the firings of eight U.S. attorneys late last year, seven of them on the same day. Blalack, a partner in O'Melveny & Myers LLP's Washington office, is an experienced defense lawyer. As attorney for Cunningham, who is serving a sentence of more than eight years, Blalack dealt with one of the federal prosecutors who was later ousted, Carol S. Lam of San Diego. He has also advised former Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a close confidant of Domenici's, in an investigation of the timing of stock sales from Frist's blind trusts. Another former prosecutor, John McKay of Seattle, alleged for the first time yesterday that he received a call from the chief of staff to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), asking about an inquiry into vote-fraud charges in the state's hotly contested 2004 gubernatorial election. McKay said he cut the call short. Ed Cassidy, a former Hastings aide who now works for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said the call was routine and did not violate "permissible limits" on contact with federal prosecutors. Hastings, the ranking Republican on the House ethics committee, also said that the exchange was "entirely appropriate." In remarks after yesterday's hearings, McKay said that officials in the White House counsel's office, including then-counsel Harriet E. Miers, asked him to explain why he had "mishandled" the governor's race during an interview for a federal judgeship in September 2006. McKay was informed after his dismissal that he also was not a finalist for the federal bench. White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined last night to respond to McKay's comments. Yesterday's testimony featured new allegations of threatened overt retaliation against the prosecutors, as former U.S. attorney Bud Cummins of Little Rock said a senior Justice Department official warned him on Feb. 20 that the fired prosecutors should remain quiet about their dismissals. Cummins recounted in an e-mail made public yesterday that the official cautioned that administration officials would "pull their gloves off and offer public criticisms to defend their actions more fully." "It seemed clear that they would see that as a major escalation of the conflict meriting some kind of unspecified form of retaliation," Cummins wrote in the e-mail, which he sent as a cautionary note to fellow prosecutors. The senior official, Michael J. Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, wrote in a letter to the Senate that he never intended to send a threatening message in his talks with Cummins. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said that "a private and collegial conversation" was "being twisted into a perceived threat by former disgruntled employees grandstanding before Congress." The six U.S. attorneys who appeared yesterday had declined to testify voluntarily. They were subpoenaed by a House Judiciary subcommittee and threatened with subpoenas in the Senate. Their testimony marked the latest twist in the U.S. attorneys saga, which began quietly on Dec. 7 with a spate of firings, but has prompted concern among current and former federal prosecutors that the firings -- and the Justice Department's evasive and shifting explanations -- threaten to permanently damage the credibility of U.S. attorney's offices nationwide. "The whole series of events has been remarkable and unprecedented," said Mary Jo White, who served for nine years as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York during the Clinton and Bush administrations. "It's not a matter of whether they have the power to do it; it's a matter of the wisdom of the actions taken. It shows a total disregard for the institution of the U.S. attorney's offices and what they stand for." Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said during the testimony that "if the allegations are correct, there has been serious misconduct in what has occurred." The Justice Department said initially that the prosecutors had "performance-related" problems, but more recently it asserted that they had not adequately carried out Bush administration priorities on immigration, the death penalty and other issues. The department has also acknowledged that Cummins, the Little Rock prosecutor, was asked to resign solely to provide a job for a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove. "In hindsight, perhaps this situation could have been handled better," Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella said in prepared testimony yesterday in the House. "That said, the department stands by the decisions." Moschella said Justice did not intend to evade Senate oversight of U.S. attorneys, who under a new law can be appointed on an interim basis indefinitely by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. For the first time, Moschella detailed in public the department's rationale for each of the dismissals (although most of the claims had previously been aired through anonymous comments and documents leaked to reporters). All but one of the fired prosecutors had received positive job evaluations, but Justice officials say those reports do not include all possible performance problems. Moschella also said it is "dangerous, baseless and irresponsible" to allege that the firings were linked to unhappiness over public corruption probes, as Iglesias and some Democrats have alleged. In the e-mail released yesterday, Cummins wrote that Elston called him after a Feb. 18 Washington Post article, which quoted Cummins as criticizing Justice officials for blaming the firings on performance problems. He said that he defended his remarks, and that he made a point of noting that the prosecutors had declined invitations to testify before Congress. "He reacted quite a bit to the idea of anyone voluntarily testifying," Cummins wrote, adding later: "I don't want to stir you up . . . or overstate the threatening undercurrent in the call, but the message was clearly there and you should be aware before you speak to the press again if you choose to do that." Cummins testified that he did not feel threatened by the conversation, but others, including Iglesias and McKay, said they took it as such. Former U.S. attorneys Daniel Bogden of Las Vegas and Paul Charlton of Phoenix also testified.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4.
#2. To: aristeides (#0)
Well, gee. That's weird. Why would a former aid to Karl Rove want a job as a federal prosecutor in Arkansas of all places? What's so special about Arkansas?
Wal-Mart faces phone taping investigation.
Bad link; although I suspect that Ms. Clinton's old case files may get a working over by Rove's boy, too.
#5. To: bluedogtxn (#4)
I'll try that link again. Wal-Mart faces phone taping investigation .
Does Little Rock cover
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