First I’d heard of this
Patrick Fitzgerald may be the most feared prosecutor in the country, but even as he’s racked up headlines for big-name convictions (Scooter Libby) and indictments (Rod Blagojevich), the hard-charging U.S. attorney from Chicago has been waging a private crusade: trying to kill a book he believes maligns his reputation. In the past year and a half, Fitzgerald has written four letters to HarperCollins—owned by Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp.—demanding it “cease publication” and “withdraw” copies of Triple Cross, a 2006 book by ex–TV newsman Peter Lance that criticizes Fitzgerald’s handling of terror cases in New York in the 1990s. Fitzgerald raised the temperature even more last week, aiming to halt a paperback version. “To put it plain and simple,” he wrote in a June 2 letter obtained by NEWSWEEK, “if in fact you publish the book this month and it defames me or casts me in a false light, HarperCollins will be sued.”
Media experts say Fitzgerald’s letters, written on personal stationery and totaling 30 pages, are unusual for a top lawman. “We certainly find it highly offensive that a federal prosecutor would do something like this,” says Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. But Fitzgerald makes no apologies. The book’s claims, he wrote in an e-mail, are “outrageously dishonest.” He says that Lance “alleged that I deliberately misled courts and the public” in ways that led to the 9/11 attacks.
[Click to continue reading US Attorney Fitzgerald Fights a Book Publication | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com]
Claiming that Fiztgerald is responsible for 9/11? I could see why he would be offended. Is this payback for the Valerie Plame prosecution? or just another hatchet-job by News Corp?