Political Quotes

“today's Washington Post details more allegations of political influence in the recent firing of eight U.S. attorneys. Yesterday, in a press conference, a New Mexico U.S. Attorney, David Iglesias, asserted that he was fired for purely political reasons. The reason? Mr. Iglesias says that prior to November elections, two elected officials, Federal elected officials, asked him to speed up the probes of local politicians. He did the right thing, refused; and now he is fired. We know that the White House officials intervened and replaced seasoned prosecutors with individuals short on experience but long on political ties. I thought that is what FEMA was for. Yet Attorney General Gonzalez said he would never ever dismiss attorneys for political reasons. So this administration either originally hired incompetent U.S. Attorneys in the first place or hired competent U.S. Attorneys, but incompetently fired them. Which is it? Many Americans believe these U.S. Attorneys are not being fired because they failed to go after public corruption, but because they did and were successful. This Congress will not sit idly by. Madam Speaker, this Congress passed the most sweeping ethics changes since Watergate. We're cleaning up our mess. It's time the Justice Department did the same.”