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.