August 9, 2005: New Mexico Republican Official Asks White House to Fire US Attorney

New Mexico Republican Party chairman Allen Weh, convinced that US Attorney David Iglesias is an incompetent who is deliberately refusing to prosecute voter fraud cases (see May 6, 2005 and After and May 12 - June 9, 2005), sends an email to Scott Jennings, an official in the White House Office of Political Affairs (OPA). He copies the email to Jennings’s supervisors Karl Rove and Sara Taylor (see Late January 2005), Republican National Committee official Timothy Griffin, and Steve Bell, the chief of staff to Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM). Weh writes in part: “We discussed the need to replace the US Atty in NM several months ago. The brief on voter fraud at the RNC [Republican National Committee] meeting last week reminded me of how important this post is to this issue, and prompted this follow up. As you are aware the incumbent, David Iglesias, has failed miserably in his duty to prosecute voter fraud. To be perfectly candid, he was ‘missing in action’ during the last election, just as he was in the 2002 election cycle. I am advised his term expires, or is renewed, in October. It is respectfully requested that strong consideration be given to replacing him at this point.… If we can get a new US Atty that takes voter fraud seriously, combined with these other initiatives we’ll make some real progress in cleaning up a state notorious for crooked elections.” Griffin responds in an email to Rove and Taylor: “I have discussed this issue with counsel’s office [the White House counsel’s office, headed by Harriet Miers]. I will raise with them again. Last time I spoke with them they were aware of the issue, and they seemed to be considering a change on their own. I will mention again unless I am instructed otherwise.” Twenty minutes later, Rove responds by telling Griffin, “Talk to the counsel’s office.” Griffin replies, “Done,” and adds a bit about setting up a meeting with someone unrelated to the Iglesias-Weh discussion. Rove responds, “Great.” He will later testify that he may have been responding to Griffin about the unrelated meeting. [US Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 9/29/2008; US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, 6/15/2009 ; US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, 7/7/2009 ; US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, 7/30/2009 ] One of Weh’s Republican colleagues, lawyer Patrick Rogers, recommended that state and national Republicans use voter fraud as a “wedge issue” before the November 2004 elections, and has himself complained about Iglesias’s record on voter fraud investigations (see September 23 - October 2004).