The Special Counsel's Act of Treason

Earlier in the year this blog praised the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald as US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Fitzgerald targeted government corruption and demonstrated his ability to be independent of political bias. His office prosecuted former Republican Governor George Ryan, sent top advisors in Mayor Daley's administration to jail and is leading the charge to get to the bottom of the "pay for hire" scandal tied to the current Governor. With every headline in Chicago's newspapers Fitzgerald brought back respect the US Attorney's Office has lacked. Which is why I can't help but being disappointed in his handling of the investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA's employee's identity (Valerie Plame, in the event you have been living under a rock for the past 3 years).

In December 2003, Patrick Fitzgerald was named Special Counsel; everything that he did from that point on can only be labeled a political witch-hunt. When Fitzgerald took this position, the Justice Department already knew the leak came from the State Department. Instead of focusing there, Fitzgerald took direct aim at Vice President Cheney and Karl Rove. Fitzgerald could have shut down the investigation within one month, he knew Richard Armitage was the leak, but the Special Counsel kept this secret so he could trap Cheney, Rove and Scooter Libby with a game of perjury and obstruction of justice. Washington insiders knew the truth, Clinton's hatchet man Sydney Blumenthal said in an unapologetic interview, "I had known that Armitage was that source for a long time, many months, and it has been fairly well known among some people in Washington."

Fitzgerald's prosecutorial abuse was merely a vain attempt to discredit the White House. For 18 months this sham of an investigation was allowed to continue (it continues to this day) with the sole beneficiary being the Democratic Party, adding firepower to arm their endless attacks on the Bush Administration. Is it any wonder why people think that the Democratic Party is unpatriotic? Couldn't someone in that party think that the time the White House spent defending themselves against false charges could have been better spent fighting the War against Terror? Maybe unpatriotic is the wrong word....how about treasonous!