David Iglesias, fired US Atty, wrongfully fired for serving in the Navy Reserves

Here's another twist to this story! David Iglesias was fired from his position because the Justice Dept. called him an "Absentee Landlord". He was gone 45 days a year. Where? In the Navy Reserves. Doing what? Teaching foreign military officers about international terrorism.

Here's the rest of the story from Newsweek:

April 4, 2007 - When he wasn’t doing his day job as U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David Iglesias was a captain in the Navy Reserve, teaching foreign military officers about international terrorism.

But Iglesias’s military service in support of what the Pentagon likes to call the Global War on Terror (GWOT) apparently didn’t go down well with his superiors at the Justice Department. Recently released documents show that one reason aides to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited in justifying the decision to fire Iglesias as U.S attorney late last year was that he was an “absentee landlord” who was spending too much time away from the office.

That explanation may create new legal problems for Gonzales and Justice. Iglesias confirmed to NEWSWEEK that he was recently questioned by lawyers for the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency, to determine if his dismissal was a violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), a federal law that prohibits job discrimination against members of the U.S. military.

At the encouragement of Office of Special Counsel director Scott Bloch and his deputies, Iglesias said he is this week filing a formal legal complaint with OSC against the Justice Department over his dismissal on this and other grounds. (While the Justice Department normally prosecutes USERRA violations, the OSC, an independent federal agency that protects the rights of whistle-blowers, takes the case when the potential violator is the federal government itself.) “I want to make sure they didn’t fire me because of my military duty,” Iglesias said. “When I was away from the office, it wasn’t like I was going on vacation in Europe.” (A Justice Department spokesman did not respond for a request for comment on whether Iglesias’s firing might have been a violation of the law.)

Now here's a problem for the Justice Department! I think they really stepped into it this time. And it will reflect on the Bush Admin.

Here's a bit more:

The Bush administration has vigorously promoted enforcement of USERRA—in large part because of the dramatic increase in National Guard and military reserve members who have been called into active duty due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The law’s purpose—highlighted by Gonzales himself in a Justice Department press release last summer—is to make sure reservists and National
Guard members don’t suffer in the workplace when they are called to serve their
country.

Gonzales announced last August the creation of a special Web site to inform reservists and National Guard members of their rights under the law. At the time, he also touted the first-ever class-action lawsuit under USERRA that had been brought by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The suit against American Airlines alleged the company had reduced employment benefits for two pilots—one of them, like Iglesias, a captain in the Navy Reserve—because the pilots had taken too much leave to perform their military service. “This nation depends on our reservists to faithfully carry out their duty,” said Wan J. Kim, assistant attorney general in the charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, when the lawsuit suit was filed. “No reservists—indeed, no members of our armed forces—should ever be punished or discriminated against for answering the call of duty.”

“This is a really interesting issue,” said Sam Wright, a veteran U.S. Navy lawyer and leading expert on USERRA, when asked about whether the law might apply in Iglesias’s case. (Wright recently retired from government service).

Wright noted that USERRA prohibits employers—including government agencies—from taking any “adverse employment action” against reservists or National Guard members because of their military service or even using such service as a “motivating factor” in such actions.

There's more at the link. It's going to be fun watching this play out.