U.S. Attorneys in Illinois are never very popular among the Democratic crowd from whence sprang Obama and his chief of staff, ex-Rep. Rahm Emanuel. Local prosecutors just seem unable to spot the kind of chronic political corruption that leaps out to federal eyes.
An additional complication for Obama firing Fitzgerald right now is that the attorney is in the midst of a multi-year investigation of two former Obama pals -- Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who's been convicted and is singing to the FBI to reduce his pending sentence, and ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who hasn't been charged yet, but how'd it look for the president to fire the prosecutor hot on his tail?
Fitz is still on the job...for now. Presumably he's not in line for Commerce Secretary:
A U.S. Attorney out in New Mexico is pursuing another pay-to-play probe of another Obama political pal, Gov. Bill Richardson, who was nominated to be secretary of Commerce but withdrew when word spread of the investigation into one of his big political donors also benefiting from state business.But Obama might try to kick him upstairs somewhere, sometime. Will he throw Illinois under the bus?
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