Recently, a certain blogger was speculating about the real motives about the Bush administration's attempt to fire to fire every single U.S. Attorney-- that the ultimate target was Patrick Fitzgerald.Yesterday's Chicago Tribune had a front page article with the headline: Gonazales aide rated Fitzgerald mediocre: Prosecutor's ranking same as 2 others who were fired."
This ranking came while Fitzgerald was bringing down corrupt Illinois Governor Ryan, and was investigating the leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, which had been in retaliation for her husband refusing to lie to support the administration's run to war. This investigation led to the conviction of Scooter Libby, and aide to Vice-President Cheney.
The chief criterion in ranking, according to the article, was willingness to be compliant to the administration's demands.
The article quoted Fitzgerald's former supervisor, Mary Jo White as saying that the rankings of Fitzgerald as a mediocre prosecutor "lacks credibility across the board," and that "He is probably the best prosecutor in the nation, certainly one of them."
That, of course, is the problem, in the administration's eyes.
4 comments:
Very interesting. You can't just fire one guy because that would look too political, wait, nevermind.
I was lucky to meet Fitzgerald a few years ago when he first arrived in Illinois. He gave the impression of a thoroughly decent, thoroughly competent man.
I'll once more Costa Gavras's Z, which in turn was based on a novel, in turn based on facts -- in Greece. No one in the status quo likes a good independent prosecutor or invesigator. But I do ;)
Hey, I missed this story on my last trip here. Thanks for the link!
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