February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, whose parents met after immigrating to the United States from Co. Clare, is the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation into CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name being leaked.
Fitzgerald is thought likely to bring indictments in the investigation before the grand jury’s term expires on Friday, though he could ask for the term to be extended. He could also decide against indicting anyone, though such a move would ignite a political storm.
Fitzgerald’s investigation into how the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative, came to be released into the public domain in July of 2003, has already caused massive tremors in Washington, D.C. and beyond.
Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, served 85 days in jail before agreeing to testify in the investigation.
It has been widely reported in the past week that both Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political advisor, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief-of-staff, have been told they are in serious legal jeopardy in regards to the case.
There is still enormous uncertainty surrounding the investigation, however. Fitzgerald’s office has proven surprisingly “leak-proof” and much remains unknown about who has testified and what they have said.
According to a recent Washington Post profile, Fitzgerald grew up in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn, in New York. He worked as a school janitor in his youth and also toiled alongside his father as a doorman during his summers off from college.
His parents, Patrick sr. and Tillie, are now deceased.
Fitzgerald attended Amherst College, earning a BA in Economics and Mathematics, before going on to Harvard Law.
He made his name in recent years as the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, where he started the job less then two weeks before Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, he has secured a conviction against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and has also extracted a guilty plea from John Gambino in a mafia case.