Patrick Fitzgerald

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Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick Fitzgerald, Official DOJ Portrait
Born December 22, 1960
Brooklyn, New York
Occupation Federal prosecutor, United States Department of Justice

Patrick J. Fitzgerald (born December 22, 1960) is an American attorney and the current United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. On December 30, 2003, Fitzgerald was appointed to continue the investigation into the Plame affair. Fitzgerald was named by Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case due to conflicts of interest.[1][2]

Contents

[edit] Career

Fitzgerald was born into a working-class Irish American-Catholic family in Brooklyn and grew up in the Flatbush neighborhood. His father (also named Patrick Fitzgerald) worked as a doorman in Manhattan. Fitzgerald attended Our Lady Help of Christians grammar school, Regis High School, a prestigious Jesuit Catholic school in Manhattan, and received degrees in economics and mathematics from Amherst College before receiving his JD from Harvard Law School in 1985.[3]

After practicing civil law, Fitzgerald became an Assistant United States Attorney in New York City in 1988. He handled drug-trafficking cases and in 1993 assisted in the prosecution of Mafia figure John Gotti, the boss of the Gambino crime family.[4] In 1994, Fitzgerald became the prosecutor in the case against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others charged in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[5]

In 1996, Fitzgerald became the National Security Coordinator for the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. There, he served on a team of prosecutors investigating Osama bin Laden.[6] He also served as chief counsel in prosecutions related to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

On September 1, 2001, Fitzgerald was nominated for the position of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois on the recommendation of U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald (no relation), a Republican from Illinois. On October 24, 2001, the nomination was confirmed by the Senate.

[edit] Illinois

Soon after becoming U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, Fitzgerald began an investigation of political appointees of Republican Illinois Governor George Ryan, who were suspected of accepting bribes to give licenses to unqualified truck drivers. Fitzgerald soon expanded this investigation, uncovering a network of political bribery and gift-giving, and leading to more than 60 indictments. Ryan, who did not seek re-election in 2002, was indicted in December 2003. At the conclusion of the trial, in April 2006, Ryan was found guilty on all eighteen counts against him. Ryan's co-defendant, Chicago businessman Larry Warner, 67, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, fraud, attempted extortion, and money laundering. The two were sentenced on 6 September 2006: Ryan received a sentence of six and one half years, and Warner received a sentence of three years, five months.[7]

Against criticism that these cases were based on circumstantial evidence, Fitzgerald responded: "People now know that if you're part of a corrupt conduct, where one hand is taking care of the other and contracts are going to people, you don't have to say the word 'bribe' out loud.... And I think people need to understand we won't be afraid to take strong circumstantial cases into court."[8]

On July 18, 2005, Fitzgerald's office indicted a number of top aides to Democrat Richard M. Daley, the mayor of Chicago, on charges of mail fraud, alleging numerous instances of corruption in hiring practices at City Hall. Fitzgerald is also investigating the administration of current Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. An investigation announced on December 30, 2005 will review contracts between the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and vendors who signed leases to occupy the recently remodeled Illinois Tollway oases. Fitzgerald's office is investigating possible conflicts of interest between these vendors and one of Blagojevich's top fundraisers, Antoin Rezko.

In March 2006, former Chicago City Clerk James Laski pled guilty to pocketing nearly $50,000 in bribes for steering city business to two trucking companies. Thus far Laski is the highest-ranking Chicago official and Daley administration employee brought down by Fitzgerald's office in conjunction with the Hired Truck Program scandal.

U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald chose not to run for reelection in 2004, leaving Patrick Fitzgerald without a congressional patron. In the summer of 2005, there were rumors that he would not be reappointed to a second four-year term in retaliation for his conduct in investigations into corruption in Illinois and Chicago government, as well as for his investigation of the Plame scandal.[9]

[edit] Plame investigation

See also: Plame affair

On December 30, 2003, Fitzgerald was appointed Special Counsel (under Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR Part 600) in the Plame investigation. Through this, Fitzgerald was delegated "all the authority of the Attorney General" in the matter. In February 2004, Acting Attorney General Comey clarified the delegated authority and stated that Fitzgerald has plenary authority. Comey also wrote "further, my conferral on you of the title of 'Special Counsel' in this matter should not be misunderstood to suggest that your position and authorities are defined and limited by 28 CFR Part 600."[10]

On October 28, 2005, Fitzgerald brought an indictment for 5 counts of false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff. Libby resigned to prepare for his legal defense. Fitzgerald indicated that the leak investigation was not over, and it was widely believed that Karl Rove was the main target of the investigation, although Fitzgerald refused to comment on any specific person.

In his first press conference after announcing Libby's indictment, Fitzgerald was asked about comments by Republicans such as Kay Bailey Hutchison, who said "I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality..." Fitzgerald responded, "That talking point won't fly... The truth is the engine of our judicial system. If you compromise the truth, the whole process is lost . . . if we were to walk away from this, we might as well hand in our jobs."[11]

By March 28, 2006, some bloggers were reporting that on the basis of interviews with people close to the Plame investigation, indictments against Rove or National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley were imminent. However, by mid-June 2006, it was announced that no charges were going to be brought against Rove. In early April, The New York Times ran a front page story linking Libby to a leak, supposedly ordered by Dick Cheney, that Iraq had been attempting to acquire uranium in 2002. By the thirteenth of the month, many media outlets, including the New York Times, retracted this story, after discovering that the basis of this claim was based on papers filed with the courts the previous week. These papers themselves were corrected via formal statements from Fitzgerald.

On August 28, 2006, it was reported that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation.[12] Investor's Business Daily questioned Mr. Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an op-ed piece one day later.[13] Robert Novak's testimony in the Lewis Libby perjury trial made it known that the two senior administration sources he cited in his article were Richard Armitage and Karl Rove. [1] Journalist Michael Isikoff received confirmation from Rove's lawyer and from lobbyist Richard Hohlt that Rove was also faxed an advance copy of the article revealing a CIA covert agent's identity several days before it was published.[2]

An author and former Federal Prosecutor of 20 years, Elizabeth del la Vega, has taken issue with Fitzgerald's critics.[14]

On March 6th 2007, Libby was convicted of 4 out of 5 charges of lying under oath. He will be sentenced in June; the charges carry a recommended sentence of 25 years in prison. However, Libby's lawyers are filing an appeal and the defense's hope is that Libby will keep the legal process tied up until the lame duck session in which a pardon is widely expected.[citation needed]The White House refuses to comment on this except to say that it is "saddened" and "disappointed" by the verdict.

While Fitzgerald announced that he "expects" no further charges and that the prosecution will "all return to their day jobs", there is some public sense that Cheney may eventually also face either indictment or be pressured into resignation, as a result of the Plame/Wilson civil suit against the Bush administration; this is particularly suspected since the suit plans to draw on the testimonies from the Libby trial as evidence.

Two days after the verdict, Congressman Henry Waxman, chair of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, announced that his committee would ask Plame to testify on March 16, in an effort by his committee to look into "whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding Plame's identity."[15]

In March 2007, it was revealed that Fitzgerald "was ranked among prosecutors who had 'not distinguished themselves' on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005...."[16] This was revealed in light of an investigation of the December 2006 firings of several U.S. Attorneys by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, perceived as being politically motivated. The Washington Post article states that two other prosecutors so ranked were dismissed.

[edit] Conrad Black and Hollinger

On November 17, 2005, Fitzgerald brought criminal fraud charges against former Canadian media mogul and Lord Conrad Black, as well as against three other Hollinger executives.

The trial of Lord Black began at the Federal Court in Chicago in March 2007.

[edit] RISCISO indictments

On 1 February 2006, it was first announced that Fitzgerald was indicting nineteen members of a software and movie piracy ring in U.S. Federal Court in Chicago.[17][18]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Savage, Charlie. "Ashcroft Steps Aside in Probe Into CIA Leak", Boston Globe, 2003-12-31. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  2. ^ Why Did Attorney General Ashcroft Remove Himself From The Valerie Plame Wilson Leak Investigation?. FindLaw (2004-01-06). Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  3. ^ Slevin, Peter. "The Prosecutor Never Rests", The Washington Post, 2005-02-02. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  4. ^ Wilson, Jamie. "Workaholic who earned his spurs taking down the mob", The Guardian, 2005-10-29. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  5. ^ Harris, Paul. "Saint Patrick's Day", The Observer, 2006-02-12. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  6. ^ Fitzgerald, Patrick (2003-10-21). Testimony of the Honorable Patrick Fitzgerald before the Senate Judiciary Committee. United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  7. ^ Korecki, Natasha, Herman, Eric & Pallasch, Abdon. "6 1/2 years for George Ryan", Chicago Sun-Times, 2006-09-06. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  8. ^ Davey, Monica, Ruethling, Gretchen. "Former Illinois Governor is Convicted in Graft Case", The New York Times, 2006-04-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  9. ^ Pallasch, Abdon. "Is Fitzgerald's Time Up?", Chicago Sun-Times, 2005-08-04. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  10. ^ Government Accountability Office (2004-09-30). "B-302582, Special Counsel and Permanent Indefinite Appropriation". Government Accountability Office. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  11. ^ FDCH e-Media. "Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference", The Washington Post, 2005-10-28. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  12. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2006-08-29). Plame Out: Plamegate's ridiculous conclusion. Slate. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  13. ^ "Did Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald Lie?", Investor's Business Daily, 2006-08-29. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  14. ^ "The White House Criminal Conspiracy" by Elizabeth del la Vega, published at thenation.com
  15. ^ "Plame to testify to Congress on leak", Reuters, March 9, 2007.
  16. ^ "Fitzgerald Ranked During Leak Case", Washington Post, March 20, 2007.
  17. ^ Associated Press. "19 Indicted in Software Piracy Plot", CBS News, 2006-02-01. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
  18. ^ United States Department of Justice (2006-09-01). 19 Indicted in $6.5 million "RISCISO" Software Piracy Conspiracy. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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