WASHINGTON — Weeks before the 2006 midterm election, then-New Mexico U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias was invited to dine with a well-connected Republican lawyer in Albuquerque who had been after him for years to prosecute allegations of voter fraud.
"I had a bad feeling about that lunch," said Iglesias, describing his meeting at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen with Patrick Rogers, a lawyer who provided occasional counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party.
When the voter fraud issue came up, Iglesias said, he explained to Rogers that in reviewing more than 100 complaints, he hadn't found any solid enough to justify criminal charges.
Iglesias recounted the episode in an interview with The Times after meeting behind closed doors with federal investigators this week to provide new details of the events leading up to his termination as U.S. attorney. He said he now believed he was targeted because he was seen as slow to bring criminal charges that would have helped GOP election prospects.
Federal investigators are examining whether electoral considerations -- such as a broader Republican initiative to enforce anti-fraud rules and cull questionable voters from rolls nationwide -- played a part in the termination of Iglesias and other U.S. attorneys last year.
The Iglesias case has attracted special attention because the Bush administration has had difficulty defending his dismissal as being nonpolitical, especially after Iglesias revealed that two Republican members of Congress had called him before November's election to ask about a corruption case against New Mexico Democrats.
Iglesias' account of the lunch meeting with Rogers, not previously reported, raises new questions about political pressures applied to U.S. attorneys related to voter fraud and other matters.
Rogers confirmed the lunch meeting but disputed parts of Iglesias' account, saying Iglesias had been changing his story "depending on what he needs to do to keep the story alive, get media attention and write another chapter of his book."
Discussion of voter fraud
Iglesias has told reporters and investigators that he is speaking out because his reputation has been assaulted and because political considerations were pushed improperly into the once-sacrosanct area of prosecutorial discretion.
"I believe the primary reason for my forced resignation is that I was not engaged in filing criminal complaints ... in advance of the '06 election," Iglesias said in an interview after his three-hour meeting with the Office of Special Counsel.
