Saturday, September 15, 2012

Patrick Fitzgerald Lied About Leaking Investigation To Tribune According To New Book

I've sadly come to the conclusion that former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who I once admired as a modern day Eliott Ness, is in truth a corrupt prosecutor who engaged in a massive cover up to protect Barack Obama from prosecution for taking bribes from Tony Rezko and conspiring with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to sell his Senate seat shortly after he was elected president. Someone tipped off reporters for the Chicago Tribune that Fitzgerald's office was investigating attempts by Blagojevich to sell Obama's Senate seat to prevent Obama and his associates from being caught discussing the sale of the Senate seat during phone conversations with Blagojevich that had been wiretapped by Fitzgerald's office, and that someone was none other than Fitzgerald, who had denied at the time leaking information about the investigation to reporters for the Tribune. Fitzgerald not only tipped off the Tribune about his investigation but also about his plans to arrest him. Illinois Pay To Play discusses these new revelations contained in a book written by the two Tribune reporters to whom Fitzgerald leaked the information:

Chicago Tribune reporters John Chase and Jeff Coen, in their recently released book Golden, claim that former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald lied when he said he did not know who was leaking information to the Trib about the Rod Blagojevich investigation being conducted by his office. 
Chase and Coen state in their book that, "The newspaper also had information about a planned arrest date and that the investigation had spread to whether Blagojevich had corrupted the process of choosing a new senator to replace Barack Obama."  
According to Chase and Coen, the decision to arrest Rod Blagojevich on the morning of December 9th 2008 was made one week earlier by Patrick Fitzgerald. 
Coincidentally, his decision was made at the same time Rod Blagojevich was attending the Governor's Conference in Philadelphia with President-elect Obama.
The Chicago Tribune is the former employer of Obama's campaign manager, David Axelrod, and it has steadfastly acted as his chief enabler in advancing his meteoric political rise in Illinois and the national political scene by helping cover up big holes in Obama's fairy tale biographical narrative and damaging personal information about him, while using its muscle to force into the public record embarrassing personal information about Obama's political opponents that destroyed their campaigns against him. While the Tribune worked overtime to get sealed divorce records of Obama's political opponents unsealed, it and other lamestream media organizations have shown no interest in forcing the disclosure of those wiretapped phone conversations Fitzgerald's office obtained during its investigation of Blagojevich, which included conversations with Obama and his associates. Fitzgerald's office strenuously objected to their release even when Blagojevich requested that all of his wiretapped conversations be made public, not just those Fitzgerald's office selectively used to prosecute him. Blagojevich isn't even allowed to discuss the contents of the conversations under a court order obtained by Fitzgerald's office. Blagojevich has claimed that he spoke by phone with Obama about persons he was considering appointing to fill Obama's senate seat.

A key witness and former business partner of Tony Rezko has revealed knowledge about an alleged $400,000 pay off made by Rezko to Obama before Rezko got tripped up by the federal investigation. Daniel Frawley agreed to secretly record phone conversations to aid Fitzgerald's office in its investigation of Rezko, but he was admonished by investigators working for Fitzgerald to avoid discussions during his recorded phone conversations that implicated Obama in criminal wrongdoing. Federal officials were only interested in obtaining evidence against then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Obama and Rahm Emanuel, who later served as Obama's Chief of Staff before being elected Chicago mayor, played a key role in helping Blagojevich get elected governor, and Obama, in particular, was an active participant in the selling of appointments to state boards and commissions to campaign contributors of his and Blagojevich's campaigns. Fitzgerald's office launched his Operation Board Game investigation after Blagojevich's father-in-law, Chicago Alderman Dick Mell, publicly accused Blagojevich of selling appointments to state boards and commissions in exchange for political contributions.

Fitzgerald's office also ignored irrefutable evidence that Rezko had funneled money to Obama to help him and Michelle purchase their Southside mansion. Rezko used his wife, who at the time was earning very little income, to purchase a lot adjacent to the home Obama purchased at an inflated price from the owner so the Obamas could afford to purchase the home because the owners insisted that both properties be sold at the same time. Fitzgerald's office also ignored evidence that some of Rezko's money funneled to Obama and other Illinois politicians came from an Iraqi businessman, who had been convicted of crimes related to the oil for food scandal. Obama attended a private reception with billionaire Iraqi businessman Nadhmi Auchi at Tony Rezko's Wilmette mansion at a time when Auchi supposedly was barred from even entering the U.S. because of his past criminal convictions. Auchi had wired a $3.5 million loan to Rezko, which Rezko failed to disclose as required by law.

Despite key evidence that Fitzgerald's office obtained from Rezko in prosecuting Blagojevich, his prosecution team deliberately weakened the government's case against the former governor in order to avoid putting Rezko on the witness stand because of his close ties to Obama. Rezko began serving a 10 1/2-year prison sentence last November on several counts of fraud and bribery and has refused to talk to reporters about his relationship with Obama because he knows he will die a miserable death in federal prison the same way former President Bill Clinton's corrupt business partner, James McDougal, died after he openly discussed his corrupt business dealings with Bill and Hillary Clinton while Clinton was Arkansas' governor. Federal prison officials withheld heart medication and medical treatment from McDougal that he required to sustain his life before he passed away in prison.

2 comments:

Marycatherine Barton said...

Thanks for these recent disclosures about Attorney Fitzgerald, Gary. I fear that in the past, he also covered up police corruption, including the beating and torture of arrestees and prisoners in an effort to get "confessions".

Gary R. Welsh said...

That was actually Dirty Little Richie Daley who was responsible for that back in his days as Cook Co. State's Attorney before he became mayor. Daley deserves to be in prison more than Blagojevich. People are clueless about who the real crooks are in Chicago. Blago was guilty of trivial corruption compared to the guys still walking the streets fleecing the taxpayers up there on a daily basis. Blago got the shaft. Daley covered up the killing of an innocent young man by his nephew for heaven's sake, the same nephew Daley helped make millions off insider government deals.