Six former U.S. attorneys will be testifying on Capitol Hill today in a pair of hearings as part of a congressional investigation into why the Justice Department took the unprecedented move of purging them from their jobs. One of the former U.S. attorneys, David Iglesias of New Mexico, revealed last week that he was fired after he resisted pressure by two Republican members of Congress to complete a corruption investigation involving Democrats ahead of the November elections. Senator Pete Domenici and Congresswoman Heather Wilson have admitted calling Iglesias but denied they were pressuring or threatening him. On Monday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington asked the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate whether Domenici violated ethics law. Meanwhile, the McClatchy newspapers is reporting that a high-ranking Justice Department official told one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration that if any of them continued to criticize the administration for their ousters, previously undisclosed details about the reasons they were fired might be released.
Six Fired U.S. Attorneys to Testify
HeadlineMar 06, 2007