Gonzales praises Fitzgerald

August 9, 2005

Interpret this as you will, but for all the talk we’ve heard about prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s precarious future, Alberto Gonzales seemed quite effusive in his praise for the U.S. attorney yesterday.

After visiting with U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald on Monday morning to see how he and his staff are handling their workload, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Fitzgerald has his full support.

“I wanted to meet with his team and express my gratitude and appreciation for all the good work that this office is doing,” he said. “As attorney general, I have great confidence in Pat Fitzgerald.”

Gonzales spoke at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Loop during an American Bar Association annual meeting. During an editorial board meeting Monday afternoon at the Chicago Tribune, Gonzales said he did not think there had been any conversations at the White House about replacing Fitzgerald, whose term ends in October.

Granted, there’s been plenty of reason for concern. As I noted a couple of weeks ago, many Republicans have hinted at undercutting Fitzgerald before he can start indicting White House officials. Former Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) said he sees mounting “political pressure” to oppose Fitzgerald’s reappointment as a U.S. Attorney, once his term ends this fall, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert didn’t help matters when he rejected calls to support another term for the prosecutor.

But if the Bush gang were planning to give Fitzgerald the Saturday Night Massacre treatment, it seems unlikely the attorney general would be publicly praising him as he did yesterday.

Unless this is just an elaborate head-fake to throw us off. Keeping up with Karl Rove’s machinations is such a challenge.

My guess is that Gonzalez said this to the Chicago press because of the job Fitzgerald has done on cracking down on the scandals coming out of Chicago’s city hall. Not only is Mr. Fitzgerald possibly on the verge of bringing down some high profile White House figures, but he also seems to have Mayor Daley in his sights.

Cook County republicans (yes, apparently there are a handful) even staged a news conference offering $10,000 to anyone who came forward with information that would lead to Mayor Daley’s conviction.

  • Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Think of someone like Trent Lott. Isn’t it the surest sign that someone’s about to be summarily dumped that everybody starts saying how much they “completely support him,” that they’re “behind him 100%.”

  • It’s like coach of an NBA team receiving the “vote of confidence” from the team owner. Three weeks later, the coach is fired. It just gives time to cool the press reports and work out the mechanics of the dumping.

  • Yep, as Tim Noah at Slate always likes to say, when someone has “my full support and confidedence,” it’s Washingtonese for, “I’m about to fire his a**”

  • I think you all have it wrong. In DC when someone in power says of another that they “have my full support and confidence” it means that that person is about to resign to “spend more time with their family”.

    I think Gonzalez got the draft version of the memo as Fitzgerald isn’t resigning anytime soon. (I hope!)

  • Mmmm, I see a promotion for Fitzgerald in a very near future.
    A promotion very very far away from DC…

  • I find a couple of interesting points regarding the meeting between Gonzales and Fitzgerald.

    First, it is GONZALES that (apparently) has complete confidence in and support of Fitzgerald. Yet, the article’s writer states (correctly) that it is BUSH who must decide whether to reappoint Fitzgerald to another term as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Unless and until BUSH says he has full confidence in Fitzgerald, or actually reappoints Fitzgerald, I think Gonzales’ comments are pure BS designed to indirectly keep the spin going that the White House is “cooperating” with the Plame investigation.

    Second, since Gonzales has recused himself from the Plame investigation due to his conflict of interest (as did Ashcroft before him), it would be tantamount to obstruction — or at least an improper communication — by Gonzales if he brought up or discussed ANY aspect of the leak investigation. Legal rules of professional conduct require that Gonzales treat himself as a private citizen, with no right to any information from or ability to impart any information to Fitzgerald.

    Consider this example. Let’s say the local District Attorney’s office is conducting an ongoing investigation of me for fraudulent marketing practices in my business. Joe Schmo is my criminal defense lawyer representing me in that investigation, and has full knowledge of everything (legal and otherwise) that I have done in my business practices. When John Q. Publius, the incumbant DA conducting the investigation, dies, the Governor appoints my attoney, Joe Schmo, to be the new DA. The law says that Joe Schmo and the entire DA’s office is now “conflicted” to the point that the investigation of me would need to be handled by some other prosecuting attorney’s office that had no prior involvement with that investigation.

    The same goes for Gonzales. He CANNOT have any offical role in Fitzgerald’s handling of the case, and that means even discussing the status, asking when it will wrap up, saying “how’s the leak investigation going” — NOTHING. I’m certain that Fitzgerald would insist on that independence (from what I have read of his zeal for dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s). Gonzales, not so much…

  • Then there is just the tiniest possibility that Gonzalez, having known Rove for so long and had the dubious pleasure of working with him, knowing better than most what an execrable humanoid he is, sees that Rove is going down and just had a bit of a slip of candidness, failing to completely hide his delight. Even fellow criminals still hate the slimeballs in their midst. And who is more contemptible than Rove? Come on, name names. I frankly can think of no one, and there’s such a pool to choose from.

    Oil up the guillotine, I’ll start selling tickets.

  • President Lindsay,

    Ummmmm …. Cheney? DeLay? Abramoff? Limbaugh? Coulter?

    Let’s make it easy: George Walker Bush!!

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