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Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald

By Jeralyn, Section Law Related
Posted on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 10:31:15 AM EST
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National Law Journal has selected Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leaks case, as Lawyer of the Year.

Runner-up is Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, for his challenge to the Guantanamo Review tribunals.

Both are excellent choices in my opinion. The articles are outside the subscription wall and available to all.

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    Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald | 9 comments (9 topical)
    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 11:51:35 AM EST
    Wow, the silence is deafening. Personally I'd nominate all those law students who work to get the innocent on death row exonerated. But Fitz is a cool cat. While the Cmmdr. Smith is certainly a champion. Sometimes one award just isn't enough.

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 12:59:50 PM EST
    I was hoping it was the dude who keeps shouting at me during late night tv. He says he can get me money for my pain and suffering.

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#3)
    by swingvote on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 01:14:37 PM EST
    Lawyer of the Year seems a bit dubious, given his results to date. Millions spent, thousands of man hours, no end it sight, and one indictment, for alledgedly lying about something during the investigation. Now don't get me wrong, if there was a crime committed in the Plame case (and so far we have no indictment indicating there was), I'd like to see the people responsible prosecuted. But isn't this the kind of open-ended, charge-generating "investigation" that liberals used to be opposed to?

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#4)
    by soccerdad on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 01:19:47 PM EST
    But isn't this the kind of open-ended, charge-generating "investigation" that liberals used to be opposed to?
    When you get to about 4-5 years give me a call, that seems to be the standard set up by the Repubs

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 02:58:48 PM EST
    alledgedly lying about something make that multiple times, (Tim Russert is just one example), and lying to investigators, and you might come closer to the truth. Keep in mind that the comparison is invalid on one level, as the Fitzgerald investigation isn't open-ended as was true of those launched under the old Special Prosecutor law.

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#6)
    by demohypocrates on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 05:09:26 PM EST
    I like this quote from Fitz about what national security intelligence was like prior to the Patriot Act;
    I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden in early 1996. The team ... had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens. We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. Government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. And foreign citizens.... We could even talk to al Qaeda members—and we did. .... But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was “the wall.”
    I guess Congressional Dems want to take us back to the good ole days. Merry Fitzmas.

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#7)
    by swingvote on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 05:10:44 PM EST
    DA, Regardless of how many times it is "alleged" to have happened, it's still just that, an "allegation", until someone is proven guilty of having actually done it. I would have thought that would go without saying on a defense lawyer oriented web site (you know, the old "innocent until proven guilty" standard), but I probably shouldn't be surprised that particular door doesn't swing both ways given the long tradition of double standards on both sides of the aisle. As for the comparison being "invalid": that's your opinion, and it's worth about as much as those who held the same opinion of Starr's investigation. What we have here is a prosecutor who can't find a crime to prosecute, so he's manufacturing them, which is exactly what Starr did to Clinton via Paula Jones' lawyers. Time was when good liberals everywhere thought that was just deplorable, but we now learn that liberal/progressive indignation is subject to a time limit of some sort, which draws the issue of principles into rather stark relief. Should we assume if Fitz's investigation continues for another 2 years with nothing but small fry being caught and prosecuted for things that happened during the investigation (as opposed to something that might have justified an investigation in the first place), SD and others like him will denounce Fitz and demand he return this "honor"? I didn't think so.

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#8)
    by Sailor on Mon Dec 19, 2005 at 06:51:02 PM EST
    So what was the clinton investigation originally and how many paths did it take? And the only charge was lying about a bj. (I've never known a man that hadn't lied about a bj, one way or the other;-) I think treason by a WH official, while maybe not more important than a bj, is still grounds for an investigation.
    Millions spent
    Have you been listening to rush again? Fitz has spent about $750k in 15 months as of the end of October, according to the GAO.

    Re: Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Dec 20, 2005 at 06:20:07 AM EST
    And the only charge was lying about a bj. Which investigation are we referring to here, Sailor? It seems like you're cherry-picking parts of Starr's efforts. Quite a few of those bore actual convictions, albeit of people formerly below the radar. Were those all good and proper in your book? Were they worth the money spent? I think treason by a WH official, while maybe not more important than a bj, is still grounds for an investigation. Of course you do, and if you had a case of treason, I would agree with you. But so far all you have is discrepancies in how two people remember a conversation or two. No one has been accused of treason, let alone convicted of it. And chances are, no one will be. Because if Fitz believes that Libby is lying about what he told people, then Fitz believes that Libby told people about Plame, and if that's the case, and doing so would have been treason, Fitz would have charged Libby with treason. Keep pumping this well and you might eventually find a charge that sticks, but it's not likely to be treason. Have you been listening to rush again? How typical. If it isn't Rush, it's Rove. If it isn't Rove, it's DeLay. Sorry to dissapoint you, Sailor, but I don't listen to Rush, don't pay attention to Rove, and don't even know where DeLay is anymore after his indictment. You say it's only 3/4 of a million? Fair enough. My mistake. I didn't realize that we had actually hired a financially responsible prosecutor for once. Do you think that money was well spent to date, considering all we have to show for it is an indictment for memory failure? When the next Democrat is being investigated, will you support that investigation as long as the costs stays under 1 million and people keep making wild accusations about treason? Of course you wont. You'll be back to crying about how unfair it all is and how much of a waste of money it is.

    Lawyer of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald | 9 comments (9 topical)