Patrick Fitzgerald Screws Up ROYALLY!

[WeDidIt]

Pat Fitzgerald Boots One
U.S. Attorney accidentally releases names of sources in fraud case

JANUARY 7--In a remarkable screw-up, a Department of Justice official today accidentally distributed to the media a document containing the names of nearly 20 confidential witnesses interviewed during a federal probe targeting the operators of a fraudulent investment scheme. In announcing felony charges against two men for their roles in an alleged $15 million Ponziesque swindle, the spokesman for Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (he of Rod Blagojevich- and Scooter Libby-prosecuting fame) e-mailed reporters a 62-page U.S. District Court complaint filed against John Walsh and Charles Martin, principals of the now-defunct One World Capital Group.

<snip>

Full text at the Smoking Gun

[Catherine Vincent]

1. Oh please!

[yardwork]

2. well isn't that interesting...

That would put all those witnesses at risk, right? Might cause them to be threatened, right? Might cause them to recant their evidence? Discourage other witnesses from coming forward? Shut down the case? Might have to drop the case?

Might not be able to prosecute this and other cases due to lack of witnesses coming forward?

Well gollllleeeee.

[WeDidIt]

3. It could wreck the entire case

That's why they keep names secret until they have to release them.

[yardwork]

5. I know.

[Missy Vixen]

4. If you actually read the article

you would note that the information was released by Russell Samborn, NOT Patrick Fitzgerald. Then again, the truth is in short supply around here when it's time to smear someone yet again, isn't it?

Julie

[rudy23]

7. How could Fitz do any wrong? He's 6'2"!

So dreamy.

[spotbird]

8. delete, my mistake. nt

[Sanity Claws]

9. You're still his girl, aren't you?

Even though he's now married, I still follow threads on him too. LOL

[JackRiddler]

10. Russell Samborn - "Fitzgerald spokesman"?

Oh, well, in that case, if it was his PR employee, I can't conceive how Fitz could be responsible for this awesome self-nuking of a corruption case.

Not the Fitz who so bravely confronted the Bush criminal complex with pissant charges on the designated patsy after two years of wasting the time of naive DUers who actually expected "Fitzmas."

Not the Fitz who arrested the frakkin' governor of Illinois without actually having a case ready. Just a little six-week extension should do the trick...

Fitz be perfect!

[Phred42]

6. "accidentally releases"? BS

[JackRiddler]

11. Older post on Fitzmas...

The Plame case led to the Niger forgeries and the hundreds of lies and deceptions practiced in setting up an unprovoked war of aggression and genocide condemned by most of the world. Just on the campaign to destroy Wilson and Plame, indictments could have been brought against Armitage, Rove, and, if Fitzgerald had dared to *start* with them as well as Libby, many others.

If he wasn't ready to dare, he should have refused the appointment. (Apparently he has no problems engaging in ill-considered public grandstanding against a garden-variety small-time governor-thief like Blago, perhaps in compensation for the kow-tow he did tho the Bush mob.)

Fuck him and the two years of wasted energy and hopes he inspired among the naive on the left and in the antiwar crowd.

I've got nothing against perjury charges -- as additions to the charges of treason that were actually relevant in the Bush case.

On to Blago, a small-potatoes operator practicing business as usual within a system of routine and in fact required corruption. Based alone on the Senate seat-for-sale scandal that has been most covered in his case, what's unusual about him is that he spoke too openly about how the system works in a brutal, vulgar fashion. If he had used better code words and come from a more genteel class of person (like Caroline Kennedy), he'd have gotten away with it.

Very few politicians get anywhere without playing the one-dollar, one-vote system, and while I'm all for hauling in anyone who breaks the law, the only cure for this will be to establish public campaign finance.

(Mark as irony: On the whole, I'm happy for Illinois and its relatively effective law enforcement. Putting three governors in the slammer for corruption puts them three ahead of most other states. This example probably needs to be followed, not decried.)

Anyway, this genius Fitzgerald - the Republican -- erm, sorry, the INDEPENDENT - apparently arrested a state governor before having the full case ready. I'm sure he's smarter than a lot of people, as you say, but smart is often just the means for doing stupid on a higher level. Also known as hubris.

---

And now THIS latest, truly unforgivable fuck-up.

There's not supposed to be a pattern here? Maybe they should call him Mr. Protect.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Do you remember when Arlan Specter "accidently" published the Whistlblower Hotline names?

Leahy and some others had put up a whistlblower site, sometime around Attorneygate, and
Specter's "office" quite by "accident" put the confidential names of the whistleblowers up on the site.
so veddy veddy apologetic, he was, later.

And his "office" somehow leaked other information to the WH on what the Judiciary comm. was doing about Gonzales, and his "office" somehow slipped in a new page into already passed legislation.
The guy who did that got promoted into the WH a few months later.

Specter is another dangerous mole that needs to go.
Yes, I know he has cancer. Still needs to go.