Reply #15: Whew...well, Ashcroft RESISTED recusing himself until the pressure was too [View All]

[Wordie]

great, according to this interesting article found at Truthout.org, from the Village Voice. AND, it wasn't Ashcroft that appointed Fitzgerald, apparently, but instead a deputy, James B. Comey.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/081505Y.shtml

<snip>
What Now, Karl?
By Murray Waas
The Village Voice

Saturday 13 August 2005

Rove and Ashcroft face new allegations in the Valerie Plame affair.

Justice Department officials made the crucial decision in late 2003 to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame in large part because investigators had begun to specifically question the veracity of accounts provided to them by White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to senior law enforcement officials.

Several of the federal investigators were also deeply concerned that then attorney general John Ashcroft was personally briefed regarding the details of at least one FBI interview with Rove, despite Ashcroft's own longstanding personal and political ties to Rove, the Voice has also learned. The same sources said Ashcroft was also told that investigators firmly believed that Rove had withheld important information from them during that FBI interview.

Those concerns by senior career law enforcement officials regarding the propriety of such briefings continuing, as Rove became more central to the investigation, also was instrumental in the naming of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Up until that point, the investigation had been conducted by a team of career prosecutors and FBI agents, some of whom believed Ashcroft should recuse himself. Democrats on Capitol Hill were calling for him to step down, but he did not. Then on December 30, 2003, Ashcroft unexpectedly recused himself from further overseeing the matter, and James B. Comey, then deputy attorney general, named Patrick J. Fitzgerald as the special prosecutor who would take over the case.