Fitzgerald Stays

One story that was buried in all of the stimulus discussion this week was of the announcement that President Obama will retain Patrick Fitzgerald as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).

Regular T2L readers will recall we debated the question of whether or not Obama would keep Fitzgerald on once he was sworn in. While we noted that Presidents nearly always bring in entirely new slates of U.S. Attorneys -- to stock the important posts with loyal party members and to give key patronage slots to different state power players, among other reasons -- we decided in the end that Obama would probably keep Fitzgerald simply to ensure continuity in the Blagojevich case and to avoid any criticism that would have likely come Obama's way if he had booted Fitzgerald. The move simply gibed with Obama's cautious nature, so Fitzgerald's retainment really should not surprise anyone.

Now Obama has to hope that Fitzgerald lets the Rezko investigation die.