The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is attempting to build a case of misconduct against Alberto Gonzales by showing that the former attorney general may have played a hands-on role in ousting former New Mexico US Attorney David Iglesias based on pressure he received from former White House political adviser Karl Rove, according to several individuals familiar with the agency's probe.

    Succumbing to improper political pressure in firing a US attorney would constitute a violation of Justice Department policy.

    Recently, the OPR contacted Iglesias's former executive assistant, Rumaldo Armijo, to interview him about whether he was pressured by Pat Rogers, a Republican attorney in Albuquerque, and Mickey Barnett, a Republican lobbyist, to bring charges of voter fraud against Democrats in the state, individuals with knowledge of the scope of the OPR probe said.

    Rogers was affiliated with the American Center for Voting Rights, a now defunct non-profit organization that sought to defend voter rights and increase public confidence in the fairness and outcome of elections. However, it has since emerged that the organization played a major role in suppressing the votes of people who intended to cast ballots for Democrats in various states. Rogers is also the former chief counsel to the New Mexico state Republican party, and was tapped by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) to replace Iglesias as US Attorney for New Mexico.

    Domenici also played an instrumental role in Iglesias's firing, and is currently the subject of a Senate Ethics Committee probe for allegedly trying to pressure Iglesias into filing indictments against a Democratic New Mexico official who was the subject of a corruption investigation prior to the November 2006 midterm election.

    Armijo, who was unavailable for comment, was in charge of issues related to voter fraud in New Mexico. Iglesias, who in an interview with Truthout earlier this year said he launched a in-depth investigation into claims of voter fraud in the state and found the allegations baseless, believes that his firing was due partly to the fact that he would not file criminal charges of voter fraud against individuals in New Mexico.

    Armijo has spoken to the OPR once before about numerous telephone calls and emails dating back to 2005 he received from Rogers related to voter fraud, and Iglesias's alleged failure to investigate the matter while Iglesias was US attorney, sources familiar with the investigation said.

    Contacted via email, Rogers said he could not comment at this time.

    The OPR is one of two DOJ agencies investigating the ouster of at least nine US attorneys last year and whether partisan politics played a role in the firings. A DOJ spokeswoman said the Justice Department does not comment on ongoing internal investigations.

    The OPR and the Justice Department's Inspector General announced in March that it had launched a joint probe into the firings, and said it would investigate whether the firings were improper and whether the DOJ misled members of Congress about it.

    The individuals who spoke to Truthout are current and former DOJ officials who requested anonymity because they were asked not to make public statements on OPR's investigation.

    According to its website, the OPR "is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct involving Department attorneys that relate to the exercise of their authority to investigate, litigate or provide legal advice, as well as allegations of misconduct by law enforcement personnel when they are related to allegations of attorney misconduct within the jurisdiction of OPR."

    Separately, the White House's Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which has been conducting its own investigation into the attorney firings, is still unable to obtain documents from the Justice Department (DOJ) to advance its probe into the matter, these individuals said

    The OSC sent a request to the DOJ several months ago seeking a wide range of documents including email correspondence between DOJ and White House officials, including Rove, who had discussed which US attorneys should be selected for dismissal. The OSC set a deadline for turning over the documents. However, the deadline has since passed and the DOJ has not formally responded to the OSC's request, nor has the agency stated a reason it would not turn over documents. The OSC appears to have been particularly interested in obtaining documents from the DOJ surrounding the circumstances that led to Iglesias's ouster, said individuals knowledgeable about the inner workings of the OSC probe.

    Allen Weh, the New Mexico Republican party chairman, told McClatchy Newspapers in March that he urged Rove to use his influence to have Iglesias fired because Weh was unhappy with Iglesias's alleged refusal to bring criminal charges against Democrats in a voter fraud investigation.

    Weh told McClatchy Newspapers that he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

    "Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month, according to McClatchy's report.

    "He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

    "I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,'" said Weh.

    In an interview with Truthout in May, Iglesias said he had investigated so-called voter fraud allegations and found zero evidence to support the claims. He added that, based on evidence that had surfaced thus far and "Karl Rove's obsession with voter fraud issues throughout the country," he now believes GOP operatives had wanted him to go after Democratic-funded organizations in an attempt to swing the 2006 midterm elections to Republicans.

    In May, House Democrats released a transcript of an interview Congressional investigators had with one of Gonzales's senior Justice Department staffers, Matthew Friedrich, in which Friedrich recounted that over breakfast in November 2006, Rogers and Barnett told him they were frustrated about Iglesias's refusal to pursue cases of voter fraud and that they had spoken to Karl Rove and Domenici about having Iglesias fired.

    "I remember them repeating basically what they had said before in terms of unhappiness with Dave Iglesias and the fact that this case hadn't gone anyplace," Friedrich said, according to a copy of the interview transcript. "It was clear to me that they did not want him to be the US attorney. And they mentioned that they had essentially ... they were sort of working towards that."

    According to media reports, Rogers said he does not recall speaking to Rove about Iglesias.

    In April, Iglesias filed a Hatch Act complaint with the OSC, alleging former White House political adviser Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials may have broken the law by orchestrating his firing for partisan political reasons. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's former chief of staff who resigned from the DOJ for his role in the US attorney firings, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee this year that Iglesias was added to the list of prosecutors to be replaced after the midterm elections, and that Rove had complained Iglesias had not pursued voter fraud cases aggressively enough.

    Additionally, Barnett and Rogers met with Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's White House liaison, in June 2006 to complain that Iglesias's was ignoring voter fraud. Goodling's meeting with Rogers and Barnett took place at the urging of a colleague. Rogers also drafted a lengthy letter that he sent to Domenici detailing what he claimed were Iglesias's prosecutorial failures, according to people familiar with the matter.

    Gonzales testified before Congress earlier this year that he and Rove discussed the issue of voter fraud in New Mexico prior to the November 2006 midterm elections. Moreover, Gonzales testified that he had been "made aware" that he had spoken to President Bush about the issue following his conversation with Rove.

    Moreover, during his testimony before Congress earlier this year, Gonzales testified that Iglesias had "lost the confidence of Senator Domenici." Gonzales did not say that he had lost confidence in Iglesias, which appears to lend credence to Domenici's role behind the scenes to oust Iglesias.

    The OPR's interview with Armijo is an attempt to determine whether Gonzales was influenced by Rove to fire Iglesias based on Rogers and Barnett's complaints about the former US attorney's alleged failure to prosecute cases of voter fraud. Those complaints have since proved to be unfounded.

    Iglesias' name was added to the list of US attorneys to be fired on November 7, 2006 - election day. Gonzales testified that he did not request Iglesias be placed on a list of US attorneys to be terminated and that he was not aware that Iglesias's firing was related to the election fraud case.

    Additionally, it appears that the Senate Ethics Committee is continuing its preliminary investigation into Domenici, specifically, whether he acted inappropriately by contacting Iglesias to inquire about pending indictments against Democratic officials in New Mexico prior to the November 2006 midterm elections.

    According to the Senate Ethics Committee rules, if the investigation ended or did not enter the formal stage, the committee would be required to contact Iglesias in writing to inform him that the probe had been dismissed as well as the reason it ended.

    "If, as a result of a preliminary inquiry under paragraph (1), the Select Committee determines by a recorded vote that there is not such substantial credible evidence, the Select Committee shall dismiss the matter.... The Select Committee shall inform the individual who provided to the Select Committee the complaint, allegation or information, and the individual who is the subject of the complaint, allegation or information of the dismissal, together with an explanation of the basis for the dismissal," according to the Ethics Committee's rules.

    Iglesias told Truthout in an interview that he has "not been informed that the ethics probe into Domenici's behavior has been dismissed, therefore it is still open under the rule."

    The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed the ethics complaint against Domenici for possibly violating Senate rules by contacting Iglesias and allegedly pressuring Iglesias to file indictments against a state Democrat under suspicion of corruption at the time, recently disclosed that the senator wants to use campaign funds to pay his and his staff's legal fees incurred as a result of the ethics investigation.

    Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said the disclosure is troubling and called upon the Federal Election Commission to "change its rules to put an end to this practice that makes campaign donors unwitting contributors to legal defense funds."

    It's unknown if and when the preliminary probe into Domenici will be completed. In October, ethics committee staffers told Truthout that the probe would likely not reach the formal stage due to the fact that Domenici would not seek reelection in 2008. Domenici said he would not seek reelection next year and disclosed that he is suffering from a brain disease known as frontotemporal lobar degeneration, or FTLD, a deterioration of brain tissue that can lead to personality changes, difficulty with speech and dementia.

    Rep. Heather Wilson, (R-New Mexico), announced she would campaign for Domenici's seat. However, she is the subject of a House Ethics Committee probe for also contacting Iglesias about indictments against Democrats prior to the November 2006 midterm elections.

    Iglesias told Truthout in July that he met informally with House Ethics committee staffers who queried him about the phone call Wilson placed to him regarding the status of indictments.

    Wilson has publicly acknowledged that she phoned Iglesias last year to inquire about ongoing probes involving Democrats, but she disputed Iglesias's characterization that the phone calls were meant to pressure the former US attorney to secure indictments prior to the election. Wilson also denied that her inquiries played a part in Iglesias's dismissal.

    Iglesias testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March that Wilson contacted him while he was in Washington, DC dealing with Justice Department matters. Wilson's phone call, Iglesias said, came two weeks before Domenici telephoned him at home. He said the call was brief. Wilson had started the conversation with some small talk and then queried him about the status of sealed indictments.

    "She asked me, 'what can you tell me about sealed indictments?'" Iglesias said. "The second she said any question about sealed indictments, red flags went up in my head. We specifically cannot talk about indictments until they are made public in general. It's like calling up a [nuclear] scientist ... to talk about those secret codes. The launch codes."

    Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran.

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