Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (16824)	1/22/2007 11:14:31 AM
From: Mr. Palau	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

its pretty hilarious that you think fitzgerald is dem-partisan he was appointed us atty by the bush administration on the recommendation of the illinois gop senator after putting mobsters away left and right in ny yeah, a real dem political hack. lol as for whose story he believed, it all turns on credibility, right? the trial should shed light on all of this, it should be a hoot "As head of the New York U.S. attorney office's task force on organized crime and terrorism in the 1990s, Fitzgerald prosecuted and won convictions against those responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombings, the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and of John Gambino, a leader of the Gambino crime family, on a host of charges. He even indicted Osama bin Laden who, of course, remains at large. It was in 2001 that then-Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., was looking for someone to recommend to the incoming Bush administration to take on the high-profile job of U.S. attorney in Chicago. Sen. Fitzgerald, who is no relation to the prosecutor, was a conservative but no friend of either the Republican or Democratic organizations in Illinois, which both have been dogged for years by corruption scandals. Most prosecutions in those scandals going back to the conviction of Democratic Gov. Otto Kerner in 1973 have been carried out by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, rather than local prosecutors. Since then, aldermen, judges and other city and Cook County politicians and public employees have gone to prison in various scandals, but Sen. Fitzgerald felt that an outsider was needed to finally make a dent in the culture of corruption. He recommended Patrick Fitzgerald, who got the job after Senate confirmation. Since formally taking over in Chicago just 11 days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Fitzgerald has been a busy prosecutor. "The criminal defense lawyers vote him the man of the year every month for all the work he's bringing them,'' said Bernard Judge, editor of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. "He's a dogged prosecutor.'' Fitzgerald isn't in the courtroom for the Ryan trial, which started last month and is expected to last until January, but consults with aides on strategy and the course of the case, which centers on charges that the former governor and top aides long directed an illegal operation to give licenses to unqualified truck drivers in return for cash and campaign contributions. Fitzgerald's 161-attorney office is busy on other fronts as well. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was questioned in his City Hall office for two hours in August in connection with an ongoing scandal involving alleged violations of a 40-year-old court order that bars most political patronage in Chicago. And Fitzgerald's office also is looking into fundraising for the campaigns of Ryan's successor, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat. He has also brought terrorism-related cases in Chicago. In one case, the executive director of the Benevolence International Fund was sentenced to 11 years in prison for allegedly diverting donations to terrorists in Bosnia and Chechnya. In another, he indicted Muhammad Hamid Khalil Salah, a fundraiser for the Islamic militant group Hamas.