Liberal network PBS advances idea that the White House led efforts to ‘steal’ the 2004 elections

This all figures in to the fired US attorneys scandal, so PBS throws out there a two for the price of one hit piece on the admin:

Was there a White House plot to illegally suppress votes in 2004? Is there a similar plan for the upcoming elections? This week NOW examines documents and evidence that points to a Republican Party plan designed to keep Democrats from voting, allegedly by targeting people based on their race and ethnicity with key battleground states like Ohio and Florida of particular interest. “It was a partisan, discriminatory attempt to challenge voters of color,” Eddie Hailes, a senior attorney for The Advancement Project, a civil rights group, told NOW.

Was the White House involved? David Iglesias, one of the fired U.S. Attorneys, thinks so: “It’s reprehensible. It’s unethical, it’s unlawful. It may very well be criminal.” Iglesias told NOW he was repeatedly urged by his superiors at the Justice Department to investigate allegations of false voter registrations. After his investigations came up short, Iglesias said Republican officials got angry and complained to White House aide Karl Rove. Soon after Iglesias lost his job. As a result of allegations by Iglesias and others, Congress is investigating whether the White House acted unlawfully.
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While Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to answer many questions about the controversy as he testified before the Senate this week, Iglesias told NOW he believes the White House is keeping documents from Congress to protect the Bush Administration. “That’s why there has been such a circling of the wagons around Karl Rove and Harriet Miers and Sarah Taylor. I believe there to be incriminating, possibly criminally incriminating evidence contained in those e-mails and other memoranda,” he said.

They have several ‘documents’ in PDF form posted there that supposedly leads to more questions than answers.

The interview with Iglesias is interesting – he talks about how he was ‘pressured’ by both state and national Republicans to investigate allegations of voter fraud in New Mexico … but check this out (emphasis added):

NOW: So you’re saying prosecuting cases of voter fraud is not something that traditionally has been high on the list of priorities for U.S. attorneys in New Mexico or elsewhere in the country?

DI: That’s correct. You have to understand there are approximately 4,000 federal criminal laws and we’re tasked to enforce them all … it’s impossible to enforce every possible law. So every administration has to come up with a list of priorities and this was a priority every two years during the election cycle for the Bush Administration.

NOW: It wasn’t only officials at the Department of Justice who were expressing an interest in pursuing such cases. You were getting requests from other individuals, correct?

DI: That’s correct. In fact, there was a Republican attorney, Pat Rogers, who was a prominent local attorney who tried to pressure me to come up with cases. He would send emails to my assistant, who I had tasked with running this election fraud taskforce … And I had lunch with Mr. Rogers last fall and he expressed his concern about what he believed to be this systemic, ongoing election fraud. I did not know at the time that he belonged to an organization called the American Center for Voting Rights. He did not disclose to me that he was representing any other interest. And I’ve also found out that the Republican Party was very interested in stamping out what it believed to be instances of voter fraud.

See how PBS set up this context of it being ‘wrong’ to make it a priority to look into examples of voter fraud, just because it had never ‘been a priority’ for the Justice Dept. before? That context taints the entire interview.

More weirdness:

NOW: What interest would they have in seeing you pursue cases of voter fraud?

DI: If they believe there to be prosecutable cases, it obviously sends a strong message. You don’t violate federal criminal laws. But I do understand there are some allegations that, in battleground states such as New Mexico, prosecuting even a few cases sends a very strong message and could actually result in suppressing minority voting. It was never made that blunt. It was never that clearly presented to me. And a lot of this I’m reconstructing since leaving office on March 1 [2007].

Get that? There’s a strong implication there that says prosecuting voter fraud – even a few cases – would be enough to ‘suppress’ voters because minority voters would supposedly be intimidated. So the obvious answer is to not prosecute what is felt to be legit examples of voter fraud because of that? I don’t think so.

More from the interview:

NOW: What was the nature of the allegations that [NM Republican attorney Pat] Rogers and other state GOP officials that you heard from or had contact with?

DI: They singled out ACORN [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] as an entity that they thought was engaging in this systemic election fraud. Specifically, they believed there to be a plan to register individuals who were not legally entitled to vote. Under-aged people, people who perhaps were felons, people who perhaps were not American citizens.

But it was generally that there were people voting who did not have the legal right to vote. And that may skew the result. And I believe this to be as a direct result of Al Gore’s razor thin victory over George Bush in 2000.

NOW: Remind us of what happened in the 2000 election in your state?

DI: Al Gore won New Mexico by a very small margin. If memory serves me, it was approximately 344 votes. It was the smallest margin of victory of any of the 50 states. I distinctly recall hearing among Republican Party activists, there was a belief that George Bush actually won the 2000 election [in New Mexico]. And that somehow Gore stole the election. So I think there was this belief that let’s not let this happen again. That’s what I believe to be the genesis of them attempting to put pressure on me to find prosecutable cases.

As we know already, ACORN has indeed engaged in widespread national efforts at voter registration fraud. But what were the accusations against ACORN in NM? Via RottenAcorn:

NM 2005 – Four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group’s Albuquerque ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: “It’s safe to say the forgery was widespread.”

NM 2004 – An ACORN employee registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, New Mexico State Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was “manufacturing voters” throughout New Mexico.

More on that 2005 case, via EPI:

In an effort to put a wage initiative on the ballot in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2005 ACORN employees forged thousands of fraudulent signatures. Following their voter registration drive in 2004, a state Representative stated that ACORN was “manufacturing voters” throughout New Mexico.

If Igelesias couldn’t find any prosecutable cases from that, then perhaps the Justice Department was right about him after all.

What’s really interesting about all this is that we ALL know how often Democrats have screamed “voter fraud!” in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 elections (of course, they didn’t scream it as loudly last year because, well, they won, so obviously if they win that means there’s no voter fraud), and here you have an administration that makes it a priority of US attorneys to focus on it … yet, if you look at some of the links from this Google search, you’ll see a lot of liberal links whining about the administration making investigating it a priority, apparently because so many instances of allegations of voter fraud were against liberal leaning groups like ACORN and Project Vote.

In other words, liberals don’t mind making a fuss over ‘stolen elections’ as long as they can make people think it was Republicans doing the ‘stealing.’ But when it comes to zeroing in on their own groups questionable practices, then the left starts whining that it’s a ‘partisan witch hunt.’ In short, the left doesn’t mind winning even if it means using fraudulent practices to get there. But they hate losing, so they trump up allegations of ‘voter suppression’ that fall short – as a I wrote in my prior post:

But as the Democrats have shown us far too often the last six years, nothing is off the table when it comes to political revenge, even if it means trumping up charges of the President doing something “illegal” in order for them to gain traction, and worse, even if it means sacrificing the security of this country on the alter of playing politics. They don’t care whether or not it’s really true, because they know that accusations alone are all it takes to put doubt in the minds of the American people.

Related to this, I remember last year when Florida’s 13th district voting outcome was being contested, and there were allegations of voter fraud in that district being leveled by Democrats. Ultra-lefty Kos issued this challenge in response:

Down in Florida, an epic battle is brewing over the electronic Diebold voting machines that ate 18,000 votes for Democrat Christine Jennings in FL-13 and cost her the election.

Not only is an expensive recount in the cards, but campaign and DCCC lawyers are flocking down, demanding the state freeze the machines for inspection.

These are the opening salvos in what will be the battle to end Diebold.

But only 36 people have given via our Blue Majority Act Blue page for the legal battles ahead.

To put it bluntly, to anyone who has ever complained about Diebold, this is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. No more talk needed. No more advocacy needed. This is a real-world, legal frontal assault on those electronic voting machines.

If we win this battle, you’ll be able to kiss Diebold goodbye.

And just what was Kos’ reaction when it was discovered that it was Diebold’s main competiton who supplied the voting machines for that district?

Update II: Machines in FL-13 were made by ES&S. Same difference.

LOL. You can’t make this stuff up.

Remember: It’s about the seriousness of the allegation, not whether or not the allegation is actually true …

And these people actually want to make you believe they care about your right to vote. Well sure, as long as you’re dead, underage, a felon, and not enlisted in the military.