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WASHINGTON — In April 2004, a top Justice Department official considered bringing then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to Washington to run the office that serves all U.S. attorneys, describing him in a memo as a "diverse up-and-comer, solid."

A month later, the official included Iglesias on a list of Hispanic Republicans who might be considered for the job of U. S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and this official suggested Iglesias as a possible candidate for U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, considered the most important federal prosecutor post.

Two years later, that same official, Kyle Sampson, orchestrated a plan to dismiss Iglesias and seven other U.S. attorneys. Iglesias got the bad news from Michael Battle, the man who did get the job directing the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

The memos were included in more than 3,000 pages of documents about the firings turned over this week to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

The memos also are part of a pattern that shows Iglesias was praised by Justice Department officials until they started hearing complaints in 2005 from influential New Mexico Republicans about his failure to prosecute anyone for voter fraud in 2004 and alleged slowness in pursuing governmental corruption cases.

Sampson recently resigned as chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the firings.

But in 2004, John Ashcroft was still attorney general and Sampson was one of his top aides. Sampson compiled a list of U.S. attorneys who "might be enticed" to come to Washington and run the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. The list included Iglesias.

Iglesias told The Tribune on Tuesday that he only knew he was considered for two jobs in Washington: director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys or assistant secretary for Homeland Security in charge of the Bureau of Immigration, Customs and Enforcement.

"I did not want to live in Washington, D.C., again," said Iglesias, a father of four children who was a special assistant to Transportation Secretary Federico Peña in 1994 and 1995.

Iglesias stayed on the good side of Justice Department officials through 2005.

He was one of two prosecutors invited to teach at a "voting integrity symposium" for the department in October 2004, in recognition of his creation of a vote-fraud task force before the 2004 election.

"I was working closely with the Justice Department," said Iglesias. "I was really hoping we would have a couple of cases."

But in the end, Iglesias said, they could only come up with one possible indictment and the Public Integrity section of the Justice Department in Washington was "lackluster" about the case. He said it would have been difficult to prove that the person had deliberately committed vote fraud to influence an election, as federal law requires.

Sen. Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, and other key Republicans in the state complained about the inaction on voter-fraud cases to the Justice Department and the White House.

An independent evaluation of Iglesias' office in November 2005 said he was "experienced in legal, management, and community relations work and was respected by the judiciary, agencies and staff."

But after Iglesias was ordered to resign on Dec. 7, 2006, Justice Department memos painted a far different picture.

An "absentee landlord" and "lackluster manager," said a talking-points memo for Justice Department officials before they testified to Congress in recent hearings.

It said Iglesias relied heavily on his first assistant - now acting U.S. Attorney Larry Gomez - to manage operations and that there was "poor morale" in the Las Cruces office because of an "inexperienced supervisor" and a growing immigration caseload.

Iglesias told The Tribune he was away as much as 45 days a year on Naval Reserve duty, but that the Justice Department knew about that obligation when he was nominated in 2001. Under federal law, no one can be fired for serving on reserve duty.

As for the Las Cruces office, Iglesias said he brought in an experienced prosecutor from Arizona, Maria Armijo, to run the office, but that she had problems at first because some people in the office "thought she had not paid her dues." Iglesias said that problem was resolved.

Iglesias said he still believes it was the phone calls last October from Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, seeking information from him about a local corruption probe that led to his dismissal.

The phone calls came during the final weeks of Wilson's neck-and-neck election race against Democrat Patricia Madrid.

Iglesias is negotiating with an out-of-state company about a job and may have an announcement after he returns from two weeks of Naval Reserve duty in April. Iglesias said he would stay in New Mexico, but not necessarily practice as an attorney.