Here’s a nut to crack, a small part of the ever-widening and occasionally enlightening Fitzgerald investigation guessing game.
It’s been variously reported and rumored that Patrick Fitzgerald has either cooperated with, received critical information from or even taken over Paul McNulty’s Franklin/AIPAC investigation in Northern Virginia.
My reporting and intuition tells me there’s real reason for skepticism on each of those counts. Yet I hear versions of these claims and allegations from more and more seemingly knowledgable sources. So I’m trying to keep an open mind.
Now comes information that President Bush will nominate McNulty, currently the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to be Deputy Attorney General. That’s the post that was going to go to Timothy Flanigan before he withdrew his nomination over his connections to Jack Abramoff.
Now, if McNulty had been cooperating with or become a participant or enabler of some sort of Fitzgerald’s investigation, he’s not the first person you’d figure President Bush would be appointing to the number two spot at DOJ — especially when you consider that Al Gonzales will almost certainly have to recuse himself from any consideration of the entire Plame case. If something is a afoot between Fitzgerald and McNulty, what went into the appointment? Who came up with the idea?
I don’t know which of these scenarios is closest to the mark. And these are very strange times — most anything is possible. But there’s something here that doesn’t fit.
