David Iglesias

In 2006, over sixty years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the date December 7 took on an added significance in history, as the Department of Justice fired seven United States Attorneys. The dismissals were unprecedented, as they came midterm for President George W. Bush. The firings also highlighted a newly minted and little recognized provision of the United States Patriot Act – the removal of term limits for interim appointees. Without term limits, the Attorney General, and the President, could install a United States Attorney indefinitely and never seek Senate confirmation of the pick.

David Iglesias, United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, was among the dismissed. As the scandal grew to include Senate hearings and Congressional subpoenas for White House staff, Iglesias disclosed that he had been pressured by a Senator and a United States Representative to file a political corruption indictment before the November midterm Congressional election. Iglesias also claimed that the Bush White House had directed him and other United States Attorneys to expand voter fraud investigations in hopes of changing the voting landscape in the upcoming midterm elections. The White House responded with allegations that Iglesias was a largely absent and inept executive during his term as United States Attorney.

Autobiographical accounts about scandals from those in the center of the storm lure with the promise of an unprecedented access to the truth. But how reliable is the account of the narrator? The book flap could read, “A President intent on politicization of the Department of Justice targets a second generation immigrant who has risen to the highest levels of government who is concerned only with truth and justice.” And though such a story makes for good reading, Iglesias’ book should be filed in the Fiction departments of booksellers. Anyone with any ground-level knowledge of the events Iglesias describes in New Mexico tells a very different story. From misrepresentations about the political corruption investigation at the center of the story to the misnaming of the Drug Enforcement Administration as the Drug Enforcement ‘Agency’, the book is replete with misinformation. Though Iglesias vehemently claims that his firing was politically motivated, the allegations lodged against him of absenteeism and mismanagement originated in his own ranks.

Bottom Line: A compelling read, with the caveat that the narrator is unreliable.

3 bones!!!… (more)