I was having lunch with a friend today, and mid-way through our meal I noticed a TV near the bar running CNN with the tell-tale ‘Breaking News’ logo.
I looked over and saw that it was some Justice Department news conference and figured it couldn’t be something too interesting.
Getting back to my office this afternoon I see it was a bit of a bigger deal than I thought.
As you’ve probably already seen, Attorney General John Ashcroft has decided to recuse himself from the Plame leak investigation, which will be taken over by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the current United States Attorney in Chicago.
It is gratifying to see that the investigative machinery at Justice and the FBI is a touch more on the ball than the collective wisdom of the Washington press corps, which was that the legal and substantive political issues raised by this incident were satisfactorily resolved by Plame’s appearance in a photo in Vanity Fair. But we can discuss this town’s corruption another time …
One point of detail.
At the Washington Post website, the caption under a photo of Fitzgerald seems to identify him as a Republican. But reports from the time of his appointment as US Attorney have him identifying himself as an independent and denying any partisan affiliation.
This from a May 13th 2001 AP report …
The son of Irish immigrants and a graduate of the Harvard Law School, Patrick Fitzgerald said he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
“I’m an independent,” he told reporters.
Sen. Fitzgerald said a professional prosecutor with a streak of professional independence was just what he wanted.
The senator said that at the outset of his search he consulted outgoing FBI director Louis Freeh.
“I asked Mr. Freeh who in his opinion were the best prosecutors in the country and one of the first names he mentioned was Pat Fitzgerald,” the senator said.
Patrick Fitzgerald graduated from Harvard’s law school one year ahead of Sen. Fitzgerald’s wife, Nina. But aides to the senator said the two apparently had never met while at Harvard.
In New York, Fitzgerald has the reputation of a tough, no-nonsense prosecutor who doesn’t relish bantering with reporters. He is trusted by U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White and was by her side when law enforcement officials gathered the night in July 1996 when TWA Flight 800 burst into flames over Long Island and 230 aboard were killed.
I’ve only had a chance to do a cursory look at Fitzgerald. So these judgments are tentative. But, from what I’ve seen, he appears to be someone without any strong partisan profile and a career prosecutor with experience both in public corruption cases and intelligence and counter-terrorism.
More on this shortly …
