Canada Free Press -- ARCHIVES

Because without America, there is no free world.

Return to Canada Free Press

One-man Dream Team Patrick Fitzgerald:

Bagging a Lord while waiting to face Osama bin Laden down

By Judi McLeod

Saturday, July 14, 2007

United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald went gunning for Osama bin Laden but shot up former Canadian media mogul, Lord Conrad Black instead.

In the media Trial of the Century, Lord Black has been found guilty on three counts of mail fraud plus obstruction of justice out of 13 counts against him. Although you'd never know it from a gleeful mainstream media, on racketeering and the rest, he was found not guilty.

The Showman of Prosecutors, One-Man Dream Team, Patrick Fitzgerald tilts at challenging the establishment. This is a day when challenging the establishment is de rigueur, but with Fitzgerald it seems to be a holdover from long ago days when, as a college student, he was spending summers opening doors at an upscale co-op building on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. He remembers having to bite his tongue when rich apartment dwellers talked down to him as "just the doorman".

Television's Judge Judy would likely tell him to "get over it".

But as a media darling Fitzgerald's made a name for himself, and in that respect he's not likely to be getting over it anytime soon.

The "staff"(emphasis CFP's) of the 9/11 Commission called him one of the world's (emphasis washingtonpost.com's) "best terrorism prosecutors".

Given that there are so few terrorists prosecuted, this best-ever accolade from secretaries, clerks and go-fers, like the fluff on a dead dandelion head, could be blown into the next summer breeze.

This, word for word, is how washingtonpost.com detailed Fitzgerald's Technicolor Dreams about nailing Osama bin Laden: "If Osama bin Laden ever stands trial, there's a prosecutor in Chicago waiting to face him down. As a driven young lawyer in the 1990s, Patrick F. Fitzgerald built the first criminal indictment against the man who would become the world's most hunted terrorist. Both men have moved on, you might say, but Fitzgerald still imagines that fantasy date before a judge."

With hype like that you'd almost forget that bin Laden's still on the lam.

"If you're that prosecutor, you'd be insane if you didn't want to go do that," Fitzgerald says in the well-appointed conference room of the U.S. attorney's office here. "If there was a courtroom and they said someone has to stand up and try him, would I hesitate to volunteer? No, I'm not saying I'd be the best person to try him at that point, but I'd be lying if I told you I wouldn't be interested.""

How do you spell hokum?

Truth is Fitzgerald already had that fantasy date before a judge and when he did, he fired off what seemed to be a blank.

"Facing down" Osama bin Laden in a courtroom is comic strip fare.

Courtroom reality, sans hype is much more mundane and includes real tableaus starring irritable judges and government types who keep checking their wristwatches.

On February 6, 2001 during The United States v. Osama bin Laden, then Assistant U.S. Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald had his big chance to interrogate one Jamal Ahmed al Fadl. Readers looking beyond hype for a dose of reality can turn to Chapter One, "The Forgotten Testimony", in author Paul L. Williams' current book, The Day of Islam. Al Fadl, identified as "Confidential Source One", brought before Fitzgerald from the Witness Protection Program, was a senior member of the mujahadeen, who was providing information to U.S. intelligence officials on the origin, organization and objectives of what was then the mysterious organization known as "al Qaeda" ("the base").

"…At four in the afternoon of that February in 2001, Al-Fadl, sweating and stammering, continued to spill his guts," Williams wrote. "He spoke of Muaz el-Masry, an interpreter of dreams, who attended all committee meetings and met with bin Laden on a daily basis. He described the headquarters of the organization in Peshawar. He described Ayman al-Zawahiri's pivotal role as the chief counsel to bin Laden and the most distinguished scholar in the group.

"The judge repressed a few yawns. The jury became listless. The government officials kept checking the time."

In the end, Al-Fadl's testimony fell on deaf ears. Officials in the U.S. State Department neglected to call for an investigation of the alleged al Qaeda nuclear weapons laboratory in Hilat Koko, Sudan.

"The matter of al Qaeda's quest for nuclear weapons seemed as inconsequential to the growling stomach of a hungry judge as it was to most in attendance that cold day in February, seven months before the two jet airliners crashed into the World Trade Center Towers," Williams wrote.

That was then, this is now and Fitzgerald is on a roll. As of Friday the 13th, he could now add Lord Conrad Black as a notch on his belt. Two weeks prior, he had added Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted on March 6, 2007 on 4 out of 5 charges of lying under oath.

It was on November 17, 2005 that Fitzgerald brought criminal charges against Lord Black as well as against three other Hollinger executives.

After nearly a four-month trial, it was a media feeding frenzy when the jury brought back a guilty verdict in Chicago yesterday.

But as writer Mark Steyn points out "Conrad Black was found NOT GUILTY of racketeering, NOT GUILTY of tax fraud. NOT GUILTY of the CanWest scheme. NOT GUILTY on Bora Bora, the Park Avenue apartment and Barbara's birthday party. NOT GUILTY on the individual non-competes on US newspaper sales.

"The government alleged three schemes--the "US scheme", the "CanWest scheme", the "perks scheme"--and upgraded them to racketeering, and threw in tax fraud. They lost on racketeering and tax. They lost outright on two-thirds of the schemes. And on the remaining scheme--the "US scheme"--they lost on everything but the APC non-compete fee. Yet, absent successful appeals, four men could be spending the rest of their working lives in jail. The US Attorney's office might usefully adopt as its motto the IRA's message to Mrs. Thatcher after the Brighton bombing, "You have to be lucky every time. We only have to be lucky once."

"He's now a convicted felon," said Fitzgerald after the verdict.

The National Post, founded by Conrad Black included this line in its Saturday coverage of the trial: "While Judge St. Eve was hearing arguments on Lord Black's bail conditions, a deliveryman brought a dozen long-stemmed pink roses to her office."

The mysterious tidbit followed a paragraph detailing how "Lord Black relinquished his British passport until Thursday, when the bail proceedings will continue. Prosecutors are also attempting to seize his residents (sic) in Palm Beach, Fla."

Unless someone from the prosecution sent the pink roses to the presiding judge, what was the point in mentioning them?

It's 2007 and theatre, which masquerades freely in American Congress and in America's newsrooms, now performs in the courtroom.

Dreaming of "facing down" Osama bin Laden on the witness stand is not the same as getting to interrogate him in court.

At the peak of his career in the 1920s, Clarence Darrow was the most famous trial lawyer in the U.S., the real McCoy. Spencer Tracy played Darrow in the classic film, Inherit the Wind.

Spencer Tracy could play Darrow, but we all knew it was only a film.

Larger than life in media headlines, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois is more Spencer Tracy than Clarence Darrow.

Meanwhile, the last thing the Goddess of Justice needs is an ACTRA card.

Also See:

Conrad Black and the politics of justice

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2018 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2018 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement