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Patrick J. Fitzgerald (born December 22, 1960 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American attorney and the current U.S. 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.

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.

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. 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.

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. 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.

Illinois

Soon after becoming U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, Fitzgerald began an investigation of political appointees of Illinois Governor George Ryan (Republican), 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.

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."

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.

Senator Fitzgerald chose not to run for reelection in 2004, leaving U.S. Attorney 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 vigorous, impartial, and largely leak-free investigations into corruption in Illinois and Chicago government, as well as for his investigation of the Plame scandal.

Plame investigation

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."

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."

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. Investor's Business Daily questioned Mr. Fitzgerald's truthfulness in an op-ed piece one day later.

An author and former Federal Prosecutor of 20 years, Elizabeth del la Vega, has taken issue with Fitzgerald's critics."The White House Criminal Conspiracy" by Elizabeth del la Vega, published at thenation.com

Conrad Black and Hollinger

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

RISCISO indictments

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

Notes

See also

• Archibald Cox
• Plame scandal timeline
• CIA leak grand jury investigation
• Fitzmas

External links

• USDOJ Office of Special Counsel Homepage

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