With Congress set to hold hearings with the fired U.S. attorneys in a few days, the likely guilty parties are busy positioning themselves in a frantic game of damage control. As I noted earlier, the White House positioned itself by admitting to firing the attorneys for policy reasons, and not for poor performance as previously claimed.

Now, Pete Domenici is joining the positioning game by putting out a statement that he did indeed call former US Attorney David Iglesias–but he did not try to influence him on the corruption case. He further stated that he had been unhappy with Iglesias for a few years, laying the groundwork for why Iglesias was let go.

It would appear that Domenici realized that telephone records could be subpoenaed, and that denying he had made the call last week (Domenici told reporters regarding the alleged call with Iglesias, “I have no idea what he’s talking about”) might not have been the best move. So he amends in a way that can seem like he was in line with the whole administration story (policy disagreements) and there was no coercion going on.

Of course, this does not explain a few facts that can’t be finessed: if Iglesias was doing such a poor job on policy matters, why was it not indicated in his performance review, which was positive? And is it purely coincidence that Domenici called Iglesias on a corruption case–in itself a violation of congressional ethics rules–just ten days after Representative Heather Wilson called him? Or that Iglesias was fired just a few months later and replaced with someone who would be more pliant?

But Domenici’s telling of the story also has some issues:

My conversations with Mr. Iglesias over the years have been almost exclusively about this resource problem and complaints by constituents. He consistently told me that he needed more help, as have many other New Mexicans within the legal community.

My frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s office mounted as we tried to get more resources for it, but public accounts indicated an inability within the office to move more quickly on cases. Indeed, in 2004 and 2005 my staff and I expressed my frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s office to the Justice Department and asked the Department to see if the New Mexico U.S. Attorney’s office needed more help, including perhaps an infusion of professionals from other districts.

This ongoing dialogue and experience led me, several months before my call with Mr. Iglesias, to conclude and recommend to the Department of Justice that New Mexico needed a new United States Attorney.

Essentially, he’s saying that he wanted Iglesias’ office to move more on immigration and drug cases, but Iglesias said he needed more resources to do so. Domenici says he tried to get more resources, but does not report any success–so he concluded that Iglesias should be fired.

Huh?

It seems pretty apparent that Domenici, Wilson, and the White House were up to no good and figured that they would not get caught–and are now scrambling to put up the least-incriminating poses before the whole mess hits the fan on Tuesday when the fired attorneys start to tell all under oath in front of Congress.

To stay up-to-date on all the details, read Josh Marshall’s blog, he’s the go-to guy on this one.