The Corner

Re: re: Re: Chicago Tribune Caused Premature Take-Down of Blagojevich Investigation

Byron, I didn’t for a moment mean to suggest, nor do I think I did, that your excellent reporting had not already made the point about the Trib leak multiple times — in fact, I have pointed people to exactly these reports of yours when I’ve been interviewed (as I tend to be when these sorts of “why did the prosecutor do it?” stories come up, especially if Fitzgerald is involved). 

The thrusts of my post were to take issue with the WSJ’s suggestion that the premature leak destroyed half the case and to explain why prosecutors often shut an investigation down when wiretaps are blown.  I didn’t mention your reporting in this connection because I haven’t found anything in it to take issue with (which is why I recommend it to people); and as it happens that my experience gives me some inside-baseball-type insight about why prosecutors do what they do, I thought I could offer that without being perceived as implying that these insights were news-breaking or even very original.  I did refer to other far-fetched theories about Fitzgerald’s motivations because there are a number of these out there (e.g., he was trying save his job, he was trying to minimize damage to Obama, etc.), but I never said — nor did I mean to imply — that those theories were what readers were getting from NRO.

Exit mobile version