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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (44907)	10/23/2005 11:32:42 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362595

Maybe an inkling of hope: Patrick Fitzgerald: The steely-eyed sleuth CIA leak probe and its prosecutor seen as tough, but fair Image: Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald Kevin Wolf / AP Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has Washington guessing whether he will bring indictments against top Bush administration officials over the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. CHICAGO - Patrick J. Fitzgerald's final witness was behind bars, refusing to testify, and no one was budging. Hunting for room to maneuver, the special counsel talked with one side, then the other. He drafted a letter that nudged the witness and needled I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Three days later, Libby put fingers to keyboard and told New York Times reporter Judith Miller that she was freed from her promise to protect his identity. He praised her mightily and urged her to "come back to work -- and life." Satisfied, she quit jail after 85 days, testified to Fitzgerald's grand jury and surrendered details she had vowed never to reveal. Miller's testimony carried Fitzgerald one step closer to the climax of his investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name, an inquiry that a federal judge termed "exhaustive" and President Bush called "dignified." In typical fashion, the Chicago prosecutor interceded personally, with a blend of toughness and flexibility, and pocketed what he needed. Story continues below ? advertisement Even-keeled from the start Fitzgerald's most difficult and contentious choices -- whether to seek criminal charges -- remain to be announced, possibly this week. Yet in a case with huge political stakes for the White House, a portrait is emerging of a special counsel with no discernible political bent who prepared the ground with painstaking sleuthing and cold-eyed lawyering. So far, Fitzgerald has given neither Republicans nor Democrats grounds to question his motives as he excavated the machinations of a White House that prided itself on its discipline and its ability to push its pro-war message. He did not blink, lawyers and witnesses say, and he did not leak. • More politics news News organizations have complained bitterly that Fitzgerald fractured the special relationship between reporters and their sources. White House allies have warned that he will criminalize routine Washington political transactions or impute a coverup where no provable original crime occurred. But federal judges have strongly backed Fitzgerald, who presented secret evidence to persuade an ideologically diverse appeals court that someone committed "a serious breach of public trust." Fitzgerald, 44, is investigating allegations that Bush administration officials illegally leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity to reporters to discredit her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who challenged White House justifications for the Iraq war. Evidence suggests senior officials including Libby and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove were more deeply involved in the events than the White House initially said. Click for related story Independent, but not an Independent Fitzgerald was recruited to the case in December 2003 by close friend James B. Comey, deputy attorney general to John D. Ashcroft. He was two years into a posting as Chicago's U.S. attorney, a job he won partly because he was a seasoned outsider with no evident political agenda, qualities that inspired Comey to appoint him to a case with powerful partisan overtones. msnbc.msn.com