Why Did Fitzgerald Act? by Donald Devine
The Bear on Jan 14 2009 at 6:14 am | Filed under: Judiciary, Politics
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich boorishly peddling Barack Obama’s Senate seat was ugly enough. But why did U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald act so soon, before the case was fully developed? As former top Department of Justice official Victoria Toensing noted, “The governor’s maneuvering to sell the Senate seat most likely had not yet crossed the line to become criminal.”
The Attorney’s actions were very strange. Here you have an officer of the law – whose legal guidelines require that he not go beyond the specific public facts of the indictment – holding a colossal media conference telling the world Blagojevich was engaged “in a political corruption crime spree,” that he “has taken us to a new low,” that various of his actions were “appalling” (several times), and finally that his “conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.”
The guidelines specifically require that a “prosecutor shall refrain from making extrajudicial comments that pose a serious and imminent threat of heightening public condemnation of the accused.” What could Mr. Fitzgerald have said to the TV that would have been more prejudicial than what he actually intoned into every living room in America?
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