David Iglesias

Iglesias was born in Panama City, Panama to Southern Baptist missionaries; his mother, Margaret Geiger (1923-2012), was a German-American, and his father, Claudio Iglesias (1923-2008), was a Guna-Panamanian. His mother and father raised him on a small island off the coast of Panama where they were building a church, and doing medical, dental, and linguistic work with the Guna language (creating the Guna alphabet). After Panama, his family moved first to Newkirk, Oklahoma (1964-1970), then to Gallup, New Mexico, then back to Panama for one year. Moving again, he graduated from Santa Fe High School, in Santa Fe, New Mexico (1976). He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois (1980), and a Juris Doctor from the University of New Mexico School of Law (1984). Iglesias served in the United States Navy and later in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He was a Judge Advocate (JAG), at the Pentagon and Naval Legal Service Office, in Washington, D.C., at the Washington Navy Yard (1985-1988). In 1986, he was one of the members of the legal team that was the inspiration for the film A Few Good Men, with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, a case involving the assault of a fellow Marine at their base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ==Politics==

A political independent during his college years, he became a Republican while in the Navy. Iglesias in an interview with Tavis Smiley, said that he was for: "smaller government, less taxes, personal responsibility, and government restraint." He ran for New Mexico Attorney General as a Republican in 1998, but narrowly lost to Democrat Patricia A. Madrid. ==Political career==

Iglesias was a state Assistant Attorney General (Special Prosecutions; focusing on white collar fraud cases) for the state of New Mexico (1988-1991), then an assistant city attorney for the city of Albuquerque (1991-1993). He returned to employment with the state of New Mexico, first for the State Risk Management Legal Office as Chief Counsel (1995-1998), and the Taxation and Revenue Department as General Counsel (1998-2001). He was an associate with the law firm of Walz and Associates in Albuquerque when he was nominated as US Attorney for the District of New Mexico in August 2001. ==Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy==

In 2005 Allen Weh, chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party, complained about U.S. Attorney Iglesias to a White House aide for Karl Rove, asking that Iglesias be removed. Weh was dissatisfied with Iglesias due in part to his failure to indict New Mexico State Senator Manny Aragon (D) on fraud and conspiracy charges. Then in 2006 Rove personally told Weh "He's gone." Weh followed up with, "There's nothing we've done that's wrong. It wasn't that Iglesias wasn't looking out for Republicans. He just wasn't doing his job, period." In October 2006, when Domenici called to ask about the progress of an investigation, New Mexico U.S. Iglesias said he felt this inquiry was trying to "pressure" him to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved Aragon. When Iglesias said he didn't think an indictment would be issued before November, "the line went dead." Earlier in October, Rep. Wilson also called about the indictments in the same investigation. One month after the election, Iglesias was fired by the Bush administration, and his firing was central to the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy. Larry Gomez, who had been Iglesias' assistant, took over as acting U.S. Attorney, but never received a presidential appointment to the post. One of the stated reasons for Iglesias' dismissal was dissatisfaction in his prosecution of voter-fraud cases. Nevertheless, Iglesias "had been heralded for his expertise in that area by the Justice Department, which twice selected him to train other federal prosecutors to pursue election crimes" and was "one of two chief federal prosecutors invited to teach at a 'voting integrity symposium' in October 2005… sponsored by Justice's public integrity and civil rights sections." The Justice Department said that part of the reason for Iglesias's dismissal was because of his frequent absences. In response to this charge, Iglesias stated that the reason for these absences was his mandatory service as part of the Naval Reserve. That would have constituted a possible violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act (USERRA). ==Dismissal aftermath==

In 2008 Iglesias wrote (with contributor Davin Seay) In Justice: Inside the Scandal That Rocked the Bush Administration. On The Daily Show first broadcast on June 16, 2008, Iglesias was asked about his political ideology. Host Jon Stewart pointed out that Iglesias had been a committed Republican. Stewart asked whether Iglesias' experiences made him feel disappointed and betrayed. Iglesias replied, "Yes, and to use a Star Wars kind of imagery, I thought I was working with the Jedi Knights, and I was working for the Sith Lords." In October 2008, a report by the Department of Justice's Inspector General found that Iglesias had been wrongfully dismissed because he had refused to pursue prosecutions against the Democrat-linked community organization ACORN and a prominent New Mexico Democrat. "The real reasons for Iglesias' removal were the complaints from New Mexico Republican politicians and party activists about how Iglesias handled voter fraud and public corruption cases in the state," the report says. The Inspector General's report says that Senator Domenici's complaints were the "primary" reason Iglesias was fired. ==Personal life==

Iglesias reviews Native American films, both fictional and documentary, and has written feature length articles for Native Peoples Magazine since 1992. In 2002, he contributed an article to Native Peoples, called "Brothers in Arms: Windtalkers". Iglesias lives with his wife, Cynthia, and has four daughters. ==References==