BY MIKE CETERA
Eyebrows were raised, but the word "tenuous" also was uttered more than once during our afternoon meeting Monday when editors discussed where the mention of Dennis Hastert in the Tony Rezko trial should be played in the paper.
Read the trial accounts here and here.
From the Sun-Times:
Tony Rezko associate Elie Maloof just testified that when he received a grand jury subpoena, Rezko told him not to talk to the feds. Why?"The federal prosecutor will no longer be the same federal prosecutor," Maloof just testified that Rezko told him. What did Rezko mean prosecutor Chris Niewoehner asked? "That Patrick Fitzgerald would be terminated and Dennis Hastert will name his replacement. The investigation will be over."
All of the accounts I've read dance around the suggestion that Hastert was involved in a plot to sack U.S. District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Hastert denied the suggestion himself on Monday.
Yet this isn't the first time the former speaker's name has been invoked during discussions of Fitzgerald's potential dismissal.
And the timeline of this supposed ouster plan described in federal court is curious because it nearly coincides with Hastert's own prediction years ago that Fitzgerald would serve through the end of President Bush's term.
In 2005, Lynn Sweet wrote:
Fitzgerald's original four-year term expires in a few months, and former Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., who engineered his appointment (they are not related), is raising a concern the Chicago-based career prosecutor may be pressured out.The former senator said in a TV interview he feared for Patrick Fitzgerald's future because of his pursuit of official corruption.
Speaker of the U.S. House J. Dennis Hastert, R-Yorkville, was asked about Peter Fitzgerald's concerns last week.
"I know there (have) been innuendos about my getting pressures. I can tell you nobody has talked to me or called me about this. Anybody. Period," Hastert said...
"As far as I know, the U.S. attorney general nor the president or anybody else has asked for his resignation. He serves for the duration as far as I'm concerned."
Hastert said nearly the same thing this week -- three years later -- when questioned by reporters. And since Fitzgerald still has his job, doesn't that lend credence to Hastert's repeated denials?
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