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The House Judiciary Committee released thousands of pages of transcripts and e-mails Tuesday providing new details linking Karl Rove, top political adviser in the George W. Bush White House, to the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.

The documents -- which include transcripts of closed-door interviews with Rove and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers -- suggest Rove and his staff were most closely involved in the decision to fire David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico.

Miers told the Judiciary Committee that Rove was "agitated" when he called during a visit to New Mexico in September 2006 and said Iglesias was "a serious problem and he wanted something done about it."

The documents also provide new details about contact members of New Mexico's congressional delegation had with White House officials regarding Iglesias. Former Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M. (1999-2009), e-mailed Rove's staff complaining that Iglesias had failed to prosecute voter fraud cases, while former Sen. GOP Pete V. Domenici (1973-2009) called Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, in October 2006 asking that Iglesias be replaced.

The Senate Ethics Committee in 2008 issued a letter of admonition to Domenici, saying a 2006 call he had placed to Iglesias regarding a corruption investigation "created an appearance of impropriety that reflected unfavorably on the Senate."

Members of Rove's staff were pushing for Iglesias' removal as early as May 2005, when his aide, Scott Jennings, e-mailed another one of his deputies indicating, "I would really like to move forward with getting rid of NM US ATTY."

Rove told the Judiciary Committee he became concerned about Iglesias' handling of voter fraud cases as well as two public corruption cases, in part due to complaints from members of the state's GOP congressional delegation and Republican state officials.

But Rove said he believed the decision whether to recommend removing any U.S. attorney rested with the Justice Department.

"This was something that Justice needed to make a decision about, and that this was not something that the White House was going to make a decision about," Rove said he told state party officials.

House Judiciary Democrats say the released documents confirm their suspicions that the Bush White House orchestrated the firings for political reasons, after Justice Department officials from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on down were unable to tell lawmakers who initiated the firings.

"The basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons," said John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, in a statement.

But Lamar Smith of Texas, the panel's top Republican, released a statement saying "the interviews reveal no evidence of wrongdoing in the firings."

"Despite all evidence to the contrary, House Democrats continue to falsely accuse former Bush administration official Karl Rove of wrongdoing in the dismissal of several U.S. Attorneys," Smith said.

In a statement, Rove said he welcomed the documents' release. "They show politics played no role in the Bush administration's removal of U.S. attorneys, that I never sought to influence the conduct of any prosecution, and that I played no role in deciding which U.S. attorneys were retained and which replaced," Rove said.

Long Battle
The documents' release had been expected since July 30, when Rove concluded his second day of closed-door questioning led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary Committee and a former assistant U.S. attorney.

That same day, The New York Times and The Washington Post published stories based on a pre-emptive joint interview with Rove in which he characterized his role in the firings as minimal.

Conyers and Schiff are forwarding their findings to Nora Dannehy, a U.S. Attorney who was appointed last year by former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to investigate the firings after the release of a report on the matter by the Justice Department's Offices of Inspecctor General and Professional Resonsibility.

President Bush initially refused to allow Rove and Miers to testify before the House panel. Bush also refused to turn over internal White House records related to the firings.

Bush's decision sparked a lawsuit by the committee that tested the boundaries of executive privilege. The committee filed suit in federal court last year seeking enforcement of its subpoenas against Miers and Bolten, who was subpoenaed as custodian of the records.

A federal judge ruled last year that Miers and Bolten were not immune from the subpoenas. The Bush Justice Department appealed that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

But earlier this year, the committee struck a deal with Bush -- which was blessed by President Obama -- in which the panel won the right to question Rove and Miers, as well as former deputy Bush White House counsel William K. Kelley, in private, on-the-record interviews. The committee also can seek public testimony from the trio.

Under the deal, the panel also obtained White House documents related to the firings from December 2004 to March 2007.