Gerald Herbert / AP Photo
The House Committee investigating the Bush-era U.S. attorney firings released 5,400 pages of interviews with Karl Rove and Harriet Miers as well as RNC and White House e-mails that reveal "White House officials were deeply involved in the U.S. attorney firings and the administration made a concerted effort to hide that fact from the American people," according to the press release from the committee, headed by John Conyers (D-Mich). The documents make it clear that Rove was directly linked to firing U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, while earlier Rove had claimed his aide was "freelancing" in his bid to get the lawyer fired in 2005. "Under the Bush regime, honest and well-performing U.S. attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horsetrading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the U.S. attorney corps--that of U.S. Attorney Iglesias—because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections," Conyers said. Rove pressed Miers to "do something" about Iglesias just weeks before his name turned up on the fire list, and was also aware of his aide's efforts to fire Iglesias. In another shady revelation, U.S. Attorney Todd Graves "was removed as part of a White House-brokered deal with U.S. Senator Kit Bond." Bond agreed "to lift his hold on an Arkansas judge nominated to the Eighth Circuit federal appeals court" in exchange for Graves' firing.