Ex-Gonzales no. 2: Make Fitzgerald Attorney General Michael Roston

Published: Friday July 20, 2007 Print This Email This The former top deputy to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested that Special Prosecutor and US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald should be Attorney General of the United States, according to a report in Bloomberg News. "I think he would make a spectacular attorney general," former Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Comey told the news service's Patricia Hurtado and David Voreacos in a Friday article. "He certainly is one of the very best federal prosecutors in America." Comey, who served as Deputy Attorney General from 2003-2005 under both Gonzales and John Ashcroft now works in the private sector with the Lockheed Martin Corproation. He recently re-emerged into public view when the Senate and House Judiciary Committees subpoenaed him to receive testimony about a hospital bed confrontation between Gonzales, then White House Counsel, and Ashcroft over a domestic spying program that Comey refused to certify as legal. Fitzgerald, US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, gained national prominence when he was appointed Special Counsel in the investigation of the leaking of the identity of covert CIA Agent Valerie Plame Wilson. He successfully prosecuted Vice President Cheney's former top aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for obstruction, perjury, and making false statements before Bush commuted Libby's 30 month jail sentence. The profile piece on the Chicago-based prosecutor goes on to note that he does not consider his current position a springboard to higher political office. In a taped appearance on a jointly-produced National Public Radio and Chicago Public Radio show, Fitzgerald reportedly will say, "I'm not doing that," when asked if he will run for public office. Fitzgerald is slated to appear on the "Wait, wait...don't tell me" quiz show. The Bloomberg article described the humorous questions he was subjected to. "'We are so not going to ask you any questions about Scooter Libby,' NPR news anchor Carl Kasell told Fitzgerald during the taping," Hurtado and Voreacos report. "Instead, he was peppered with questions about other scooters: the two-wheeled scooter made by Segway Inc., Scooter the stagehand from television's Muppet Show and former New York Yankee Phil Rizzuto, also nicknamed 'The Scooter.'" An AP report of the show also detailed a gift that the show's hosts gave Fitzgerald. "At the end of the show, Sagal gave Fitzgerald a child's scooter. It was engraved with: 'To Patrick Fitzgerald, USA, This one will stay where you put it,' according to the news wire article.



