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Iglesias, Former US Attorney, Speaks at NHIOP
While former US Attorney David Iglesias was in classrooms and meeting with students on Monday, the Department of Justice’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility released a report on their investigation into the removal of nine US Attorneys in 2006. Iglesias, who is among the nine who lost their jobs for suspiciously political reasons, was too busy to sit down and read the 392 page bundle including the report and documents, and instead learned of the findings through eight Saint Anselm College students, who had volunteered to read chapters of the report and prepare briefs for him.
The eight, all Ambassadors at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, waited by their computers on Monday morning for the 10 o’clock release of the report. To streamline the research, each summarized for Iglesias the findings regarding one US Attorney, allegedly dismissed for political reasons under the tenure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The timing of the report's release, as well as Iglesias' forced resignation, was a coincidence with his pre-planned visit to the College as a speaker. NHIOP Executive Director Dale Kuehne told the Crier that Iglesias, a friend from college, was originally booked to speak on the movie A Few Good Men.
Navy Lt. Daniel Kaffee, played in the movie by Tom Cruise, is part of a legal team defending several Marines stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, against charges that amount to assaulting a fellow Marine. The case in the movie, as well as the Cruise character, is based on Iglesias and a case he participated in as a young Navy Judge Advocate General officer at the start of his career.
Three years ago Kuehne convinced Iglesias to visit Saint Anselm College and to speak on the differences and parallels between the movie and actual case. In these three years, Iglesias, who had been appointed US Attorney for New Mexico in 2001, was forced to resign. Instead of simply accepting the job loss as a lost cause, Iglesias encouraged the other fired US Attorneys to draw attention to their unusual situation.
The politically motivated firings, Iglesias told the NHIOP Ambassadors at a dinner on Sunday evening, was unprecedented. The scandal led to the resignation of Alberto Gonzales a year ago, and current attorney general Michael Mukasey has appointed a special prosecutor, the US Attorney for Connecticut to delve deeper into the case. The special prosecutor might have the subpoena power to request interviews and documents from White House staffers who were unavailable for the preparation of this report.
On Monday, Iglesias delivered a presentation titled "When Justice Looses its Way;" the night before, he screened A Few Good Men and gave a version of the talk he had originally expected to deliver on the movie and real cases.
The movie version, Iglesias explained, condensed three separate trials into one trial of two men. The real-life victim of the hazing incident survived, although the movie victim died, and "conduct unbecoming of a Marine" was not among the real-life charges brought under the Article 32 hearing. Iglesias also said his defense team did not spend any pre-trial nights swigging whiskey and that several dramatic lines were taken from real comments made at the trial and on the Guantanamo base.
Iglesias' book, In Justice: Inside the Scandal That Rocked the Bush Administration (Wiley, John & Sons) was published last spring and details political forces acting upon the Justice Department.
Iglesias, who said he has been interested in writing a book for some time, says the topic for In Justice happened upon him. And his advice for future lawyers? Keep writing.
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