OpEdNews - Diary: Murtha Hits Rove In Backside -- But It's 'Padded"

I swear I saw Patrick Fitzgerald walking on the Potomac the other night. Those who maintain he's "above partisan politics" would probably have no problem with this.

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Who and what is Patrick Fitzgerald? Certainly no one Karl Rove or Dick Chaney need to worry about. He's the best asset Rudi Giuliani ever had in the US Attorney's Office for Southern New York. Now he's also cut in Karl Rove's "image" -- that of a hard-working, no nonsense prosecutor of considerable moral character. Hardly anyone's even attempted to connect the dots on "Fitzy" since he was named Special Prosecutor in the Plamegate affair. I suspect it's because it would be a career graveyard for any journalist who does. Such is Karl's grip on the MSM; still as potent and threatening as ever. Jack Murtha appeared on Meet The Press with Tim Russert and GOP Pundits last Sunday (6/18). Many descriptions of his appearance sound something like this: "Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) responded to recent attacks from Bush strategist Karl Rove Sunday on Meet the Press, saying Rove sits "in his air conditioned office on his big, fat backside." Now Karl's also a "chicken hawk" who dodged the draft during Vietnam -- via college deferments. It probably drives the Pennsylvania Congressman from Johnstown to apoplexy since he's had to endure Rove's scorn about Iraq when Murtha spent 30 years in the Marines. As for Rove sitting in his West Wing office his only worry now is the deregulated Eastern Power Grid. Ex-flight attendants do the heavy work so Karl can plot and scheme for the November elections. One of them -- I hear -- can even type. It's what Rove's sitting on that bothers me -- and it's in Karl's hip pocket. It's Patrick Fitzgerald -- the "Eagle Scout" of the legal profession. Journalists make good money -- great money by my standards -- but when comparing the sedentary way they do background on political appointees -- Rove comes out looking like a track star. While nearly everyone -- even those in the alternative media -- were back-slapping each other over the Libby indictment, nobody bothered to read the fine print. Somebody should have. Patrick Fitzgerald had indeed been carefully groomed in Rudy Giuliani's office, and not just for his prosecutorial and intellectual skills. He's a GOP and neo-con loyalist to the bone. More simply put, a trusted servant who could be counted on to contain criminal investigations -- and subsequent sinking political fortunes -- that often result from large-scale Republican corruption. John Ashcroft recused himself from Plamegate -- then nominated Patrick Fitzgerald to act "in lieu of the US Attorney General" as Independent Prosecutor. That's what the law (and the GAO) say is "proper procedure" -- which is another way of saying the Executive Branch, including the President himself, can't fire Patrick Fitzgerald. Knowing that...do you think Ashcroft would appoint someone who could bring the entire Executive Branch down in abject shame and guilt? Actually, Ashcroftwas my governor for eight years and lost a Senate race to a dead man. I can assure you "the elevator hasn't gone to the top" for decades. But Ashcroft can always follow orders -- as long as they're color-coded. Meanwhile...what about finding a nominal "knight in shining armor" to investigate himself? Only Karl Rove could have pulled off a coup like that. Conservative pundits and politicians are making the rounds saying that Fitzgerald -- in not pressing charges against Rove -- proves Fitzy's "above partisan politics." Go figure. All that nonsense proves is that doublethink's still all the rage in DC. Speaking of which, wasn't Paddy lucky to get out of the Southern District of New York in August, 2001 -- just when things were about to heat up? Despite obtaining multiple convictions in the 1998 African embassy bombings by al-Qaeda, it was the guy who slipped off the hook that could have really caused real trouble for Fitzgerald after the Twin Towers fell. Ali Mohamed -- a US citizen found with documents concerning the embassy bombings on his hard drive -- escaped prosecution by agreeing to become a double-agent for the FBI and go back to work for al-Qaeda in Africa, and later Afghanistan. While training al-Qaeda "operatives" Mohamed flipped again to work for Osama. Fitzgerald had arranged for the Canadian RCMP to release Mohamed in 1999 after conspiring to bring explosives into the US -- for the big Y2K attack that was eventually thwarted by American and Canadian authorities. Perhaps it was only Fitzgerald reading the handwriting on the wall. Defense attorneys in the Embassy cases later said that "they could sense throughout the case that something else was coming down...probably stateside" -- or words to that affect. This is admittedly a stretch but why wouldn't Fitzgerald sense the same thing? In any case, once in Chicago he wouldn't have to answer for Ali Mohamed. In reality, few people are as noble as Fitzgerald and get themselves stuck in Chicago. Most prosecutors sent there pack an orange jump suit with their travel luggage. The state may run out of them by the time they need one to wear -- if the Ryan/Warner case proves anything. A junior Senator nominating an outsider for Chicagoland's US Attorney? Dennis Hastert in fumes? In fact, Dennis Hastert was downright cheesed off when the Administration nominated Fitzpatrick without first consulting him -- The Speaker of the US House -- of all people. That often implies a favor granted with an expected payback at some future date. Here's another tipoff: Fitzgerald's role as the new US Attorney after taking office in 2001: 1) obtain a conviction of Ryan and his pal, and 2) keep any further damage to the state GOP to a minimum. To do that, Illinois had to get an "outsider" for the job...and who also happens to be whoever the Federalist Society recommends. The Federalists have priority in the Bush Administration -- and the Bushies expect the Republicans in the Illinois Congressional caucus to rubber stamp their recommendations. Hastert could fume all he wanted to; it wasn't going anywhere. Eventually, Fitzgerald handed down a 16-count indictment against Ryan and Warner on Dec 17, 2003. Fitzgerald just needed to put the icing on the cake with Ryan and Larry Warner. The state had been running "Operation Safe Road" -- the investigation into Ryan's corruption when he was Illinois Secretary of State -- for five years. Seems some family got killed by an unqualified trucker. A really unqualified truck driver. The state soon found Ryan had actually set up a criminal enterprise that sold carte blanche truck drivers'licenses with hazmat certifications to firms with unqualified drivers -- for kickbacks. By then, the state also found itself investigating Ryan's role in extorting bribery and graft on numerous construction projects and other state services. Among these was evidence that Ryan had rigged the state's transplant organ services for kickbacks. I mean...how low could Ryan go? There seemed to be no limit. Still, Ryan was a clever fellow to pull all this off. There was a mountain of circumstantial evidence tied to bank acccounts outside the US. Like Al Capone had done 60 years before, he kept two sets of financial statements and gave money to campaign contributors to "re-invest" via shell companies in many of these projects. In short, despite a lot of smoke it would take a man inside the organization to explain it all in Federal court. That Fitzgerald got. Based mostly on the testimony of a trusted aide -- Scott Fawell -- Ryan was eventually convicted on all 16 counts, Larry Warner on several others. Republican contractors and campaign contributors also fell like dominoes in Federal Court. All of this served to make Fitzgerald look like the "new Eliot Ness" he was intended to be. After all, he's somebody who isn't afraid to go after his own kind. On the other hand, to get Fawell to rat out Ryan, Federal attorneys had threatened some of his co-workers with perjury charges. Allegedly, some folks in Ryan's office had lied to a grand jury or on affidavits to protect the boss. As for Fitzgerald's role -- although by now he was in Washington at his new job -- it was still his office that got the convictions. As of June 6, with the Ryan and Warner guilty verdicts in, Fitzgerald's NO-ILL Office can move on another target -- the Richard Daley political machine -- with off-year elections looming on the horizon. Boy...that's too bad for Dick Daley; he spent so much time sucking up to George Bush just to get away with Chicago politcs as usual. And charges have been filed by Fitzgerald's Illinois Office against Conrad Black -- for just about every corrupt business practice imaginable. But Fitzgerald will have to be re-appointed as US Attorney NO-ILL to pursue these charges. Just happens Fitzgerald's up for re-appointment this summer. Any wagers? Fitzgerald can pick and choose once he wraps up Plamegate. He's a media star. As such, the "real" Fitzgerald has been hard -- although not impossible -- to find. Some facts about him haven't changed. He was -- and continues to be -- a Federalist Society man and a Heartland Institute Republican appointed by a Republican president. And a little Internet work can go a long way -- and I found some things in the MSM as well as in public records that paints a rather different picture of "Fitzy." Here are the House CTHS Subcommittee's notes from its "First Session" in April 2005 -- concerning civil rights issues posed by the PATRIOT ACT . The arguments Fitzgerald made during his appearance are the stuff rarely found in legal textbooks [From the US House Congressional Record]: Hearing Before the: SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY of the COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 109th CONGRESS: First Session April 28, 2005 (Serial No. 109 16) TESTIMONY OF PATRICK J. FITZGERALD, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE [In excerpted form. The Record picks up during Fitzgerald's questioning by Rep. Robert Scott (D-VA). The topic at hand was the now infamous "Wall" that Jamie Gorelick supposedly put up between the FBI and the other intelligence agencies in the late 90s. Fitzgerald would probably have insinuated in more detail that such a "Wall" actually exists -- but he was being questioned by a pretty tough cookie in Scott.] FITZGERALD: "When the PATRIOT Act included section 218, that wall changed. And now, when we sit down in my district, the Northern District of Illinois, and work together with the FBI, we sit down and talk about our criminal investigations; we talk about the intelligence investigations. And we try to make sure that we're doing the right thing; that we're coordinated. And we move forward." "I, too, am concerned about civil liberties and privacy. In my view, the way we're working, we're doing things coordinated. We're talking things through. We're making sure the law is followed. I do not see abuses of privacy or civil liberties. What I do see is that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. And I think we do a much better job. Thank you." [Author's note]: At the time, both Scott and Fitzgerald were reading from transcripts of Attorney General John Ashcroft's previous appearance before the House sub-committee. Rep. Scott: "He (Ashcroft) said it's a criminal investigation, and then (Scott noting FITZGERALD MADE A NOTATION ON ASHCROFT'S TRANSCRIPT)-- YOU KIND OF PUT IN PARENTHESIS... "...without having to fool with the probable cause." [Emphasis added] Scott (continuing): "Now, I suppose-is "probable cause" the problem, Mr. Fitzgerald? I mean, is the requirement that we get probable cause the problem? I mean, if we didn't have to fool with probable cause-if we could start listening in and searching without probable cause, we could probably do a better job for law enforcement." Fitzgerald: "I'd love to answer that question. It's not the problem. There's two misconceptions, I think, that are going on in the public debate. The first is that there's no probable cause requirement in FISA. [Thanks, Pat, for clearing that up.] If the person is the agent of a foreign power; which means that they knowingly engage in intelligence gathering -- let me speak from the perspective of a terrorism investigation. To get a probable -- to get a FISA for a terrorism investigation -- for (possible) sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation thereof, on behalf of a foreign power...." Scott: "Wait a minute. Keep reading." Fitzgerald: "Okay. Or they knowingly aid or abet any person in the conduct of activities, or they knowingly conspire." Scott: "Keep reading." Fitzgerald: "That's the end-or as described in Subparagraph (a), (b), and (c). I'm talking about terrorism." Scott: "Oh, oh. Oh, you're talking about terrorism...." Fitzgerald: "That's what I said." Scott: "-as far as the FISA...." Fitzgerald: "I said "terrorism." Scott: "Well, what about the foreign-foreign intelligence? You have probable cause (if) you can get some foreign intelligence. What about foreign affairs?" Fitzgerald: "Okay, it's not probable (just) because you can get foreign intelligence. It's probable cause (if) that person is an agent of a foreign power." Scott: "Right" Fitzgerald: "You have to certify, in addition, that you're going to gain foreign intelligence, my point being--" Scott: "Wait, wait, wait. Whoa, whoa. What is foreign intelligence?" Fitzgerald: "Foreign intelligence, that's one of the things you have to get. But before you can even certify that you're getting foreign intelligence, you have to establish that the person is an agent of a foreign power. Under the terrorism statute, there is no--" Scott: "Well, wait, wait a minute. Wait a minute--" Fitzgerald: "Let me just--" Scott: "Well, no, no, because people keep coming here, time and time again-this isn't the first hearing we've had." Fitzgerald: "I know." Scott: "They come and say you need a FISA to protect from terrorism." Fitzgerald: "Yes." Scott: "And then you point out that you can get a FISA warrant for things-have (sic) nothing to do with crimes, have nothing to do with terrorism, if you can get foreign intelligence. The example I've used is--" Fitzgerald: "And I disagree with that. And if you could let me explain, because you do need--" Scott: "Okay, okay, well, let me make my point--" Fitzgerald: "Okay." Scott: "-so you know what you're disagreeing with." Fitzgerald: "Okay." Scott: "If I've got probable cause that somebody's an agent of a foreign government, and we're about to negotiate a trade deal, and I can get their bottom price on steel, can I get a FISA wiretap?" Fitzgerald: "That answer? I'll be blunt. I don't know. [Emphasis added.] Okay. because I-what I'm saying is I don't--" Scott(continuing): "The answer everybody else has given is "Yes." And that's how easy it is, and how unrelated to crime and terrorism these FISA wiretaps are. And if you can-if that's all you've got to get, to get into somebody's home, to get a wiretap and all this, then it's a lot easier to run a criminal investigation WITHOUT HAVING TO FOOL AROUND WITH WHETHER A CRIME IS ACTUALLY BEING COMMITTED." [Emphasis added.] Fitzgerald: "Except that, if that's what you are doing, you'd be lying and making a false statement when you certified that the purpose of the investigation was to gather foreign intelligence. And when you try to bring that person into court for some drug crime and say, 'We had a FISA wiretap,' and show it to the judge, for something else, it would be out of it. Let me make this point--" Scott: "Then what was the Attorney General talking about when he said, if the primary purpose of the FISA wiretap wasn't foreign intelligence, what was it? Why did he say criminal investigation? [Emphasis added.] And if I could get to the second part of what I wanted to say, it's most of those predicates require probable cause of activities which themselves are crimes when people commit terrorist acts. The point being, I think that the primary purpose itself is a fiction. And I'd like to explain that, because I think it's important." Fitzgerald: "It may be that people say early on 'you don't know what the primary purpose is.' Let me give you an example. If a CIA officer came into my office tomorrow and said, 'We have sensitive information coming from overseas that someone's going to put a bomb in the middle of Chicago next week, and take lives,' we would have the CIA in the room sharing their information. We would put the FBI in charge. We'd have several-lots of agents in Chicago. We'd have the Chicago Police Department. And we'd say, 'Let's stop this bombing. Let's get the information, and let's go prevent it.'" [Fitzgerald merely repeating what he had previously offered the sub-committee.] [Further on.] Fitzgerald: "In my personal experience, I've seen more incidental involvement of gang members or street criminals. For example, the plot where they were trying to blow up the bridges and tunnels in New York City: they had to get stolen cars; they had to get guns; they had to get things like that; where in the course of an investigation they were dealing with street-level criminals, just because they needed fake passports; they needed cars; they wanted to get detonators. So they got into this with the criminal underworld because they needed to get logistics. But it was more of a-the plan was being done by the terror ring, and they were reaching out to other people just to get logistics." Fitzgerald (continuing): "I don't see us using FISA to go after a gang problem, at all. What I do see is if FISA's going after a terrorist problem, we may incidentally pick up someone if they turn to a gang member or street criminal as part of their effort to get a, you know, weapon or a detonator, that sort of thing. But I haven't seen yet a situation where we haven't been able to just deal with it as a terrorism issue where you might incidentally come across street-level criminals. And I hope it stays that way." [End excerpt.] Fitzgerald's assessment of "gang problems" crossing the line into state-sponsored terrorism "for hire" is seldom an "all or nothing" or "one-off" link. For one, organized crime usually -- if not always -- have other agendas. Most other countries despise and often fear even their own organized crime "in-exile" lest provoking them would invite blowback. And I'm talking mostly about the relatively HONEST governments. Corrupt regimes have crime figures moving in and out of government -- whether these people are in power or out. If terrorists use organized crime figures, it's usually to rent "pros" for a particular job at hand -- not gangbangers. There's really not much trust between governments and organized crime -- unless it's brokered by an intelligence service. We wound up with the French Connection from involving the CIA with organized crime in both the Marseille dock strikes and the imminent threat of communism it posed in postwar France. Our intelligence agencies have long favored compartmentaliztion -- in part -- because of the dirty work involved in dealing with organized crime. For whatever other reasons he may have had to lay off of La Cosa Nostra, J. Edgar Hoover thought the mobs were important in fighting communism and terrorism -- and he was right. If we didn't broker deals between American Intelligence, organized crime, and foreign intelligence, someone else would. Still, the failings involved in the Iran-Contra Affair, and with Pablo Escobar, Manuel Noriega, and even Saddam -- were almost entirely failures on the CIA's part. The goals the CIA asked of crime organizations and foreign intelligence services went largely fulfilled until the GOP made the mistake of trying to take on most of the Muslim world and undercut Escobar and Noriega in the drug market. Mobsters no longer wanted to deal with us -- they might be double-crossed and often were -- and there was a "new" Russia on the world stage. Russia always had had better human intelligence than the US, and -- outside of Chechnya -- no ongoing feuds. The US's deteriorating relations with foreign intelligence services and the Mob won't be improving anytime soon. There remain some formidable players at "street level" i.e., Russia, Israel, the Palestinians, Pakistan, Chechnya -- to name a few. The way the Pakistanis burned the US before and after the 9-11 Attacks must still haunt American Intelligence to the bone. Our intelligence network -- however "integrated" it is now -- will still have to operate in some fashion if there's ever any hope of turning things around in the Persian Gulf. We'll simply continue to call the gangsters involved "freedom fighters." Fitzgerald's statements during this part of the testimony make one wonder if he's ever had a major case to prosecute -- where real organized crime syndicates joined forces with intelligence services -- and terrorists -- and, better yet, if anyone in his District ever even caught anybody. And that's arguably true. His testimony berfore the 9/11 Commission leads one to think he knew more that he was telling The Commission while he sat on evidence that might have averted some of the attacks on 9/11. What also escapes Fitzgerald-- when he mentions using gangbangers to fight terrorism -- is that they have to be provided "cover" in the process. And buying arms from a foreign power using a gangster or two for procurement? Where does he want to draw the line on that? A thin line would make about every fifth gangbanger in LA an agent of Israel -- give or take an Uzi or two. By the same token, one L.H. Oswald could have been construed to have been an "agent" of the Italian government when he shot JFK -- using a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. Chicago Magazine (a Tribune Co. publication) wrote a nice piece on Fitzgerald a few months into his stint as US Attorney for NO-ILL. In it, the magazine paraphrased Fitzgerald's virtuous ways by stating that: "And so Fitzgerald, the Mob-busting, terrorist-chasing 41-year-old prosecutor from New York City tabbed as the outsider who would clean up the town, sealed his place as the political man of the moment, despite his professed political independence: "...to avoid aligning himself with a party, he doesn't vote in primaries." "Gubernatorial candidates Jim Ryan and Rod Blagojevich can argue all they want about who can best restore trust and integrity in Illinois politics. It is Fitzgerald who is likely to have the most impact on the state's political culture in the coming years." [End excerpt.] So is Fitzgerald really non-partisan? Only when he -- and the Tribune Co. want want him to be. In 2005, Fitzgerald participated in a "debate" hosted by the Chicago Chapter of The Federalist Society and The Heartland Institute. Now a true non-partisan just might have avoided appearing at one of the most right-wing meetings in Chicago. Maybe Fitzgerald expected no one outside the Conservative "inner circle" to show up. But at least one writer from the UC Law School Journal did manage to find the time. He also wrote this: [Excerpts from a 2005 article from The University of Chicago Law School Bulletin entitled]: One Anti-terror measure, Three Widely Divergent Views By Bill Myers University of Chicago Daily Law Bulletin June 21, 2005 [Preface: For his part in the debate, Fitzgerald defended section 215 of the PATRIOT Act with the same logic -- more or less -- that he used to defend section 218.] U of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone asserted this during the debate: "Still another objection to section 215 is 'that even the government has asserted that it hasn't been used,' Stone said. 'If we don't need it, it shouldn't be there. It simply shouldn't be a power that's left 'sitting around' waiting for 'a U.S. attorney less responsible than Pat Fitzgerald' to abuse it." Responding to Stone's utility argument, Fitzgerald said: "...that it was like asking a veteran Chicago police officer to surrender his gun just because he's never fired it at a suspect. Even before the Patriot Act was passed, library records were used in the investigations of the Unabomber, the Gianni Versace homicide, abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolf and even al-Qaeda. Putting libraries out of the reach of prosecutors is dangerous," Fitzgerald said. "Do we really want to create a safe haven, where you tell a terrorist that the one place you can go in America and know that you won't be investigated -- or someone will wipe the slate clean when you're done -- would be a library?" Fitzgerald asked. [End excerpt.] Gee...I feel safer already. The government's need for FISA authority really should outweigh civil rights when fighting terrorism in public libraries. Plus, libraries would be a lot quiter without hiding out Osama and his prayerful folllowers. The presence of Heartland at the debate ought to raise one big GIANT red flag for the "congenitally no-partisan." Here's what Sourcewatch.org has to say about Heartland: "The Heartland Institute, according to the Institute's web site, is a nonprofit organization "devoted to turning ideas into social movements that empower people." [In reality,] [I]t campaigns on "junk science", "common-sense environmentalism" (i.e. anti-Kyoto, pro-GM), smokers' rights (anti-tobacco tax, denial of problems from passive smoking), the introduction of school vouchers, and the deregulation of health care insurance. It also provides an online resource for finding right-wing think tank policy documents called "PolicyBot." ** ["Policy + "robot" = "PolicyBot"?] "The institute was founded in 1984 by David H. Padden (founder and first director of the CATO Institute) and Joseph L. Bast ( pro-free market, pro-"Big Pharma", anti-environmental former oil exec). Among its more interesting participants are: Roy Marden and Craig Fuller of Philip Morris, Thomas Walton of GM, Walter F. Buchholtz of ExxonMobil, and representatives of Fidelity Bank, BankNote Capital LLC, and Golden Rule Insurance Company." "Scruplous" bedfellows, to say the least. **by the way, PolicyBot and The Heartland Institute can be found at: http://www.heartland.org