Blago, Libby prosecutor to stay on

[kpete]

Source: MSNBC

Blago, Libby prosecutor to stay on
Posted: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 4:17 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: Pete Williams

From NBC's Pete Williams
Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who brought criminal fraud charges against Rod Blagojevich, will be staying in his job in the Obama administration, even though he was appointed to the position by President George W. Bush.

U.S. attorneys are political appointees. The normal practice, when there's a change of political parties in the White House, is for the incoming administration to replace all 93 U.S. attorneys with appointees from the new president's party. For now, the Obama administration has asked the current Republican-appointed U.S. attorneys to remain in their posts while it considers how many to retain.

But Fitzgerald will not be asked to move on. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois has recommended that Eric Holder, the new attorney general, keep Fitzgerald. That suggestion was "positively received," according to officials at the Justice Department and Sen. Durbin's office.



Read more: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/02/10/1789466.aspx

[Demeter]

1. I Should Hope So

[garybeck]

3. Why? Because he let Rove and Cheney go?

I just don't get this love affair with Fitzgerald. He had a noose around Rove's neck and he let him go.

[Elidor]

8. You seem to think he's omnipotent

He's not. He operates within the law. That's why he's being kept in office.

[garybeck]

9. no

lawyers are not drones. they make decisions based on the evidence they have. I believe (and legal expert John Turley agrees) that there was sufficient evidence to indict Rove and probably Cheney too.

Even the jurors in the Libby case were ready to indict Rove but they never had the opportunity.

You are wrong about why he's being kept in office. Look at history. They almost always wipe out the attorneys and bring in new ones with a new administration. it is not based on whether or not they operate within the law.

I don't know why he's being kept on, but it's not simply because he operates within the law.

And I don't know why he wimped out with Rove, but it's not simply because operated within the law.

[Old Codger]

2. give him

A bigger role, appoint him to investigate * and Co.

[garybeck]

4. why? so he can let them go again?

there was plenty of evidence to indict at least Rove and probably Cheney too and he whined about getting sand thrown in his face... He's just about the LAST person I would want investigating Bush.

[madrchsod]

5. he told the appropriate senate and house committee chairman that

he would turn over all the grand jury testimony if they asked. they did`t ask.

[garybeck]

6. it wasn't their job to convict the perpetrators. it was his. he failed.

every time I hear that lame "sand in my face" excuse it make me want to puke. every criminal tries to throw sand in the face of those trying to put them in jail. it's his job to wipe the sand out and get to the bottom of what happened. if he doessn't, he fails.

the only good thing that came out of his failure is that rove hasn't been indicted and then pardoned because you can't be tried twice for the same crime.

maybe if a good prosecutor is put on the case someday, it won't be too late.

[Winterblues]

10. Well to be fair he did get five felony convictions on the one that threw sand in his face.

It isn't his fault that Republicans don't feel they should be held accountable for felony crimes committed..

[stillcool]

7. I wonder what will turn up..

if anything, in the Attorney General firing case. Weird how he was working on Al Quaeda/Osama bin Laden, and terrorism cases in New York before he got promoted, and moved to Illinois in September of 2001. Does anyone know if his testimony before the 9/11 Commission was public?
Edit to add...I guess it was...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3422