Author Calls For DOJ's Ethics Watchdog to Probe Patrick Fitzgerald

Lance's book was published in hardcover in September 2006. Months
later, Fitzgerald, who rebuffed Lance's repeated requests for an
interview prior to the publication of Triple Cross, sent a letter to Harper Collins alleging the book defamed and libeled him (and others) and demanded the publisher stop distribution of Triple Cross and cancel any future printings and issue a public statement refuting the allegations made in the book about Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald
also demanded "copies of all manuscript drafts and any correspondence
between author and publisher regarding the fact-checking process for
the book."

Harper and Lance spent nearly a year and tens of
thousands of dollars vetting the book internally and through an outside
attorney. Other than some minor sentence structure changes the
paperback version of Triple Cross-released last week-does not read differently than the hardcover version in its criticism of Fitzgerald.

Lance's
request for an ethics investigation into Fitzgerald centers on the fact
that the federal prosecutor, who said he was acting as a private
citizen in demanding the book be pulled from shelves, sent a 16-page letter dated Nov. 16, 2007 was sent from the office of the "U.S. Attorney Chicago" at 6:02 p.m.

It's
unknown whether Fitzgerald, who rose to national prominence during his
stint as special counsel investigating the role Bush administration
officials played in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame
Wilson and his dogged pursuit of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and
publishing magnate Conrad Black, used his staff to conduct research and
draft the lengthy letters he sent to Harper Collins.

But that's what Lance wants the DOJ's ethics watchdog to find out.

Lance
believes the letter Fitzgerald sent from the office of the U.S.
Attorney of the Northern District of Illinois was "a clear attempt to
intimidate me and chill my publisher."

Lance has asked OPR to
find out whether Fitzgerald, "apart from his use of the [fax machine
from his U.S. Attorneys office]...devote any other Department of
Justice Resources in furtherance of his campaign to kill the book.

Additionally,
Lance said OPR should determine how much time Fitzgerald spent on
"attempting to chill me and my publisher" and whether it had any impact
on "his duty to protect the citizens of the Northern District of
Illinois."

"Perhaps most important," Lance's June 13 letter to
Mary Patrice Brown, Acting Counsel of OPR, "did Mr. Fitzgerald use the
privileges and powers of his office to intimidate a publishing company
and a reporter who were acting in the best traditions of investigative
journalism?"

"In effect, did he abuse his authority by bringing
the weight of his reputation as a 'relentless' prosecutor to bear in
attempting to crush a book he found critical" of his work as a federal
prosecutor in New York.

"I ask that [OPR] to determine
whether...Fitzgerald crossed the line from public official charged with
protecting the Constitution to thin-skinned prosecutor who used the
authority of his office to undermine it," Lance's complaint says.

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