"Let's hear it for Patrick Fitzgerald, admirable public servant, lawyer extraordinaire and an inspiration to us all . . . educated by the Jesuits . . .
Patrick Fitzgerald was born in Brooklyn. His parents were from Clare. They met in New York, where Fitzgerald's father was a doorman. Fitzgerald remembers a working-class home of straightforward values of right and wrong. He got a scholarship and worked as a doorman and a janitor to put himself through college.
After three years in private practice, he became a prosecutor in New York, where he took on the Gambino crime family. He convicted the terrorists who bombed two US embassies, and he put away those who bombed the World Trade Centre in 1993. Long before 9/11, he had prepared a case against Osama bin Laden.
In 2001, at the urging of a Republican senator, Fitzgerald was brought to Illinois to tackle the state's notorious corruption. By 2002, Governor Ryan of Illinois, a Republican, stood down, knowing Fitzgerald was on his trail. Four years later, ex-governor Ryan was jailed for corruption. With a staff of 300, Fitzgerald knew no one in Illinois, and owed no favours.
Fitzgerald annoyed the White House when he investigated the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent. He convicted Scooter Libby, top aide to Dick Cheney. He also jailed business tycoon Conrad Black for using a company as his personal ATM.
Last week, Fitzgerald laid corruption charges against the current governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat. As governor, Blagojevich had the power to appoint a senate replacement for Barack Obama -- so, he set about finding out what kind of money he might get from likely candidates. Did anyone, he asked, want to give his wife a good job? And Fitzgerald got it all on tape.
We can be certain that any foibles or quirks in Fitzgerald's personal life have been ruthlessly hunted down and assessed for purposes of smearing or blackmail. It wouldn't be surprising if his phone was illegally tapped, his home covertly searched, his associates bribed for morsels of scandal.
Fortunately, he seems to be quite boring. A workaholic, he lives on takeaways (someone found a lasagne in his oven, some weeks after he forgot to eat it). He recently married for the first time, at 47.
In short, Fitzgerald seems to have no political ambition, no greed, no fear. He doesn't care what party a suspect belongs to, how powerful they are or how rich. He believes the law must be respected, and that money and power confer responsibility, not invulnerability. He's fond of saying, "the facts will lead us where they lead us". It's as well his parents emigrated -- we don't encourage that kind of carry-on in this country . . . " - Gene Kerrigan writing in The Sunday Independent
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