| Patrick Fitzgerald | |
|---|---|
| Patrick Fitzgerald, Official DOJ Portrait | |
| United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office October 24, 2001 |
|
| President | George W. Bush Barack Obama |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 22, 1960 Brooklyn, New York |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Spouse(s) | Jennifer Letzkus (1 child) |
| Alma mater | Amherst College (B.A.) Harvard Law School (J.D.) |
| Occupation | United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Patrick J. Fitzgerald (born December 22, 1960) is the current United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and a member of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel. He was the federal prosecutor in charge of the investigation of the Valerie Plame Affair, which led to the prosecution and conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby for perjury.[1][2]
He was involved in a number of other high-profile cases, pursuing Illinois Governor George Ryan, media mogul Conrad Black, several aides to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in the Hired Truck Program, and Chicago detective and alleged torturer Jon Burge. His office investigated an alleged conspiracy to sell Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, which led to the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on December 9, 2008 on corruption charges. Blagojevich was convicted in August 2010 on one charge, but the jury deadlocked on the 23 other charges. The charges against Blagojevich's brother, Robert, were subsequently dismissed, while Rod Blagojevich was re-tried and convicted on 17 of 20 counts on June 27, 2011.
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Fitzgerald was born into an Irish-American Catholic family in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, growing up in the Midwood-Flatbush neighborhood. His father (also named Patrick Fitzgerald) worked as a doorman in Manhattan.
Fitzgerald attended Our Lady Help of Christians grammar school, before going on to Regis High School, a prestigious Jesuit Catholic school in Manhattan, and received degrees in economics and mathematics from Amherst College, Phi Beta Kappa, before receiving his JD from Harvard Law School in 1985.[3] He played rugby at Amherst[4] and at Harvard he was a member of the Harvard Business School Rugby Club.
Fitzgerald married Jennifer Letzkus in June, 2008.[5][6] It is his first marriage and her second; Letzkus was married from 2001 to 2004 to Cisco executive Jeremy Crisup. Their son, Conor Patrick Fitzgerald, was born on December 21, 2009. They also have a son, Declan.
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 Gambino, a boss of the Gambino crime family.[7] 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.[8]
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.[9] 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. The Senator had urged the selection precisely because Patrick was not from Chicago (Patrick said that he had visited Chicago only one day, for a wedding in 1982, before being selected).[10]
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 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, then 67 years old, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, fraud, attempted extortion, and money laundering. The two were sentenced on September 6, 2006: Ryan received a sentence of six and one half years, and Warner received a sentence of three years and five months.[11]
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."[12]
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.[13] An investigation announced on December 30, 2005 stated that it intended to review contracts between the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority and vendors who signed leases to occupy the remodeled Illinois Tollway oasis. Fitzgerald's office investigated 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.
Since April 2007, Fitzgerald has overseen Operation Crooked Code, the investigation and prosecution of over two dozen defendants for bribery and related charges in City of Chicago's Departments of Buildings and Zoning.[14]
On December 9, 2008, federal agents arrested Governor Blagojevich for conspiring to profit from his authority to appoint President Barack Obama's successor to the U.S. Senate. Fitzgerald said Blagojevich "put a 'for sale' sign on the naming of a United States Senator."[15]
United States 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 investigations into corruption in Illinois and Chicago government, as well as for his investigation of the Plame scandal.[16] Those "rumors" were not realized; Fitzgerald continued in the position, and President Barack Obama pledged to keep Fitzgerald on as a U.S. Attorney.[17]
On December 30, 2003, after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the CIA leak grand jury investigation of the Plame affair due to conflicts of interest, Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, acting as Attorney General in Ashcroft's place, appointed Fitzgerald to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel in charge of the investigation.[1][2]
On December 30, 2003, three months after the start of the Plame investigation, Fitzgerald was appointed Special Counsel (under Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR Part 600). 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."[18]
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.
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...", to which 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."[19]
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, Christopher Hitchens claimed that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak, and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation.[20]
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.[21] Journalist Michael Isikoff received confirmation from Rove's lawyer and from lobbyist Richard F. 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.[22]
On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted of 4 out of 5 charges of lying under oath. Fitzgerald announced on the courthouse steps that while he is always open to receiving new information related to the case, he expects to file no further charges, and the prosecutors will "return to their day jobs." Libby was sentenced to a $250,000 fine, 2 years of probation and a 2½ year prison term. After a court of appeals rejected Libby's attempt to delay the prison sentence while he appealed the verdict, President George W. Bush commuted the prison portion of Libby's sentence.
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."[23]
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..."[24] 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 and despite his previous Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service in 2002.[25] The Washington Post article states that two other prosecutors so ranked were dismissed. On July 2, 2007, President Bush provided a statement[26] on his decision to commute Mr. Libby's prison sentence and noted:
"After the investigation was under way, the Justice Department appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald as a Special Counsel in charge of the case. Mr. Fitzgerald is a highly qualified, professional prosecutor who carried out his responsibilities as charged."
On November 17, 2005, Fitzgerald brought criminal fraud charges against former Canadian media mogul, 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. Black was convicted on July 13, 2007 and later sentenced to serve 78 months in federal prison, pay Hollinger $6.1 million and a fine of $125,000.[27]
On February 1, 2006, the U.S. Attorney's Office under Fitzgerald announced that it was indicting nineteen members of Risciso, a software and movie piracy ring, in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The lead prosecutor for the Government in this case was Assistant U.S. Attorney Pravin Rao. This prosecution was the result of the undercover investigation, Operation Jolly Roger, that was part of Operation Site Down, the law enforcement initiative conducted by the FBI and law enforcement agents from ten other countries in an effort to disrupt and dismantle many of the leading warez groups which distribute and trade in copyrighted software, movies, music and games on the Internet.[28][29]
On December 9, 2008, Fitzgerald confirmed in a press conference in Chicago that Illinois state governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, had been arrested by the FBI early that morning on charges of corruption. Fitzgerald described Blagojevich's actions as the "kind of conduct [that] would make Lincoln roll over in his grave."[30] Blagojevich was charged with mail fraud and solicitation of a bribe. According to Fitzgerald, Blagojevich attempted to sell off President-elect Barack Obama's open U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, as well as pressuring the Chicago Tribune to fire editors critical of the Blagojevich administration in exchange for state assistance in selling Wrigley Field.[31] Fitzgerald said at the news conference that, "I laid [sic] awake at night", worrying about the possible firing of Tribune editors.[32]
Fitzgerald's news conference has been criticized by some, including charges that he violated ethical guidelines established by the Justice Department.
Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official, wrote in an editorial to the Wall Street Journal that prosecutors are allowed to "inform the public of the nature and extent" of the charges against the defendant, but cannot "[make] extrajudicial comments that pose a serious and imminent threat of heightening public condemnation of the accused". Toensing contends that prejudicial comments such as "[the] conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave" and that Blagojevich's actions represented "a truly new low" clearly violated this legal ethical standard.[33]
Aside from Toensing's comments, Fitzgerald's prosecution against Lewis "Scooter" Libby attracted criticism. On August 28, 2006, Christopher Hitchens asserted that Richard Armitage was the primary source of the Valerie Plame leak and that Fitzgerald knew this at the beginning of his investigation.[20] A month later Armitage claimed that Fitzgerald had instructed him not to go public with this information.[34] Fitzgerald has never addressed these allegations.
Investor's Business Daily ran an editorial, which stated: "From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history... The Plame case proves [Fitzgerald] can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols."[35]