Jason Leopold: An Interview With David Iglesias

Last week, a day after Monica Goodling testified before Congress about her role in the US attorney scandal, I sat down for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with David Iglesias to discuss the implications of that testimony.

Iglesias, the former US attorney for New Mexico, was one of eight US attorneys fired in December for reasons that appear to have been motivated by partisan politics. Goodling is the former White House liaison for the Justice Department.

Iglesias discussed Goodling's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, and how what she told lawmakers about the scandal may lead to a criminal investigation against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty. Goodling accused both men of misleading Congress during their testimonies earlier this year. Iglesias told me the Congressional investigations may lead to a criminal probe that could net Gonzales and McNulty on perjury and/or obstruction of justice charges.

McNulty has announced that he will resign later this summer.

Iglesias told me that, while we still do not know how he and his colleagues were placed on the termination list, he does believe a "smoking gun" exists that will lead directly to Karl Rove and blow the scandal wide open.

"I believe somewhere on an RNC computer - on some server somewhere - there's an email from Karl Rove stating why we need to be axed," Iglesias told me in an hour-long interview.

Iglesias said Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and perhaps other officials are likely responsible for placing his name and the names of his colleagues on a list of US attorneys to be fired, because he refused to launch federal investigations and prosecute individuals purely for partisan reasons.

"If the Justice Department didn't have anything to do with placing presidential appointees such as me and my colleagues on a list to be terminated, the only other possible place would be the White House," Iglesias said. "Harriet Miers, Karl Rove or some of their underlings."

Iglesias also told me that, beginning in 2005, his office came under pressure when a close confidant of Karl Rove alleged there was widespread voter fraud in New Mexico. Iglesias said he investigated those allegations tirelessly and found zero evidence to back them up. He added that, based on evidence that has surfaced thus far and "Karl Rove's obsession with voter fraud issues throughout the country," he now believes GOP operatives wanted him to go after Democratic-funded organizations in an attempt to swing the 2006 midterm elections to Republicans.

Jason Leopold is a former Los Angeles bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswire. He has written over 2,000 stories on the California energy crisis and received the Dow Jones Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for his coverage on the issue as well as a Project Censored award in 2004. Leopold also reported extensively on Enron's downfall and was the first journalist to land an interview with former Enron president Jeffrey Skilling following Enron's bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Leopold has appeared on CNBC and National Public Radio as an expert on energy policy and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two dozen energy industry conferences around the country.

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