Iglesias: Ashcroft forced out for not signing off on illegal wiretaps David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Friday July 18, 2008





Print This Email This David Iglesias, one of the US Attorneys fired by the Bush administration as part of what he himself describes as "an attempt to politicize the Justice Department," believes that his former boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, was also forced out for political reasons. When Iglesias appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Friday to discuss his new book about the firings, In Justice, commentator Mike Barnacle reminded him that he had recently been asked by a member of the public whether he thought Ashcroft had been forced out of office. "I answered 'Yes,'" Iglesias replied. "In fact, I think he was, for not signing off on the clearly unconstitutional wiretap program. He's the first person who's ever asked me that question. Ashcroft did the right thing, and I think he paid the price for it." "That's a pretty significant story and a pretty substantial claim you've made," Barnacle noted. "If you remember the follow-up story," Iglesias continued, "when he was very sick in the hospital and he was visited by Andy Card and Alberto Gonzales and they tried to get him to sign off on it even though he was heavily sedated -- I mean, that's an incredibly chilling story, and it's something that I hope the media follows up on." In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Ashcroft himself insisted he was merely "grouchy" at the time of the hospital visit and defended the administration's actions, saying, "You had a situation where there's people who have differing legal opinions. And eventually somebody has to decide. And the president comes down on the side of the Department of Justice. What's wrong with that picture? . . . Eventually you get to the right decision being made. That's something I would expect a free society to do, involve vigorous debate." Iglesias's book is based not only on his own experiences but also on conversations with other fired US Attorneys. Barnacle asked him, "Did the name Karl Rove ever come up in the course of these conversations?" "Many, many times," Iglesias replied, "which I believe is a reason why he's refusing to testify in front of the Congress. He has information that I believe would show illegal activity, interfering with ongoing federal criminal investigations. So Rove is not testifying, I think, basically to keep himself from being indicted." Iglesias also agreed that Rove "absolutely" was connected with his own dismissal. "The evidence is clear that he took a call from Pete Domenici about me, that he talked to the state party chairman here, he was very involved in something he had no business being involved in." US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald recently confirmed to the House Judiciary Committee that Rove had also attempted to have him fired in 2004, primarily in an attempt to forestall a corruption investigation in Illinois, at the same time that Fitzgerald was investigating Rove in the outing of Valerie Plame. This video is from MSNBC's Morning Joe, broadcast July 18, 2008.

Download video

