Chances are, the people at HarperCollins think of Patrick Fitzgerald as that U.S. attorney who sent Scooter Libby up the river and didn't get to the bottom of the Valerie Plame case.That's because news events in Chicago don't seem to make it much further east than the foothills of the Appalachians.
HarperCollins is planning to release a book about the prosecution of terrorism cases. Peter Lance's Triple Cross examines cases that Mr. Fitzgerald prosecuted when he was working in New York, and there's a sense that Mr. Lance won't be entirely complimentary to the attorney.
In the event that the book does indeed defame Patrick Fitzgerald, he has threatened to sue.
The legal minds at HarperCollins might want to peruse Mr. Fitzgerald's track record since coming to Chicago. He's been hard at it, tackling corruption at the highest levels and bringing down the Chicago Machine, piece by piece. One former Illinois governor is in jail because of Mr. Fitzgerald, and the most recent occupant of the office has been arrested and will soon be joining his colleague.
In short, Patrick Fitzgerald is a phenomenally successful lawyer, and if he says he'll sue, chances are good that he'll win.
He is thorough and methodical, putting together case after case and sending Mayor Daley's cronies to prison. It's believed that he won't stop until Richie's posed for his mugshot, the man doggedly determined to end the culture of corruption in Illinois.
Mr. Lance's editor would be wise to run through the manuscript one more time, and run the appropriate passages past the legal department at HarperCollins. They can bet that Mr. Fitzgerald won't leave a single stone unturned.
2 comments:
It's a re-release, in paperback I think, of a book that was out a couple years ago.
The book is horrendously shoddy and one long paranoid conspiracy rant. And just chock a block with misleading half truths and some outright lies.
So, when Fitzgerald sugests that the re-release might also be defamatory, he's not guessing, he knows.
By supporting a hatchet job on a man who's achieved god-like status in Illinois, HarperCollins will generate publicity and even negative publicity sells books.
What would hurt is if a court found in Mr. Fitzgerald's favor and HarperCollins took a financial hit.
That's where the bean counters come in, to decide if the potential penalties outweigh the potential profits.
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