Tom Maguire has noticed something strange about mainstream press coverage of Patrick Fitzgerald — his involvement in cases that don’t involve Scooter Libby just doesn’t seem to be newsworthy:
Anyone can make a mistake. In fact, they are so common that it hardly seems to be necessary to mention the person who makes one – that, at least, seems to be the principle guiding the MSM as they dance around (and with) a particular figure they know and fear.
Let’s start with the denouement, from the Saturday WaPo:Charges Against Cowles Dropped
U.S. Court Clears Local Executive
Charges have been dropped against Northern Virginia businessman Frank L. Cowles Jr., who was arrested in November on allegations of conspiring to defraud a hedge fund out of $25 million.
A U.S. District Court judge in Chicago dropped criminal charges against Cowles on March 1 after the U.S. attorney’s office there filed a motion to dismiss. Cases continue against two men who were charged with Cowles for allegedly defrauding a Chicago-based fund. […]
“For someone who has been absolutely clean and honorable all my life, the charges came as quite a blow,” Cowles, 76, said in a telephone interview.
“The only thing I’ve ever had on my record is three speeding tickets when I was 18,” he said. “After a very, very exhaustive 3 1/2 -month investigation, they came up with the right conclusion.”
Cowles’s attorney, Robert D. Luskin of the law firm Patton Boggs in the District, said the complaint against Cowles was a mistake and that his client had been the victim of a scheme that cost him a great financial loss.“This was a mistake,” Luskin said. “The person that was thought to be the predator was actually the prey.”
Plamaniacs recognize Robert Luskin’s name – he is Karl Rove’s attorney in what is inaptly called the Valerie Plame leak investigation (“Inapt” because the actual leak seems to have dropped off the prosecutor’s radar).
But is there another name Plamaniacs might recognize in this story? There would be, if the WaPo would print it; golly, they weren’t this coy when the case was filed last November:
U.S. Arrests Three In Hedge Fund Case
Frank L. Cowles Jr. is known in the Northern Virginia business community as the owner of car dealerships and a founding director of Virginia Commerce Bank in Arlington. Now, at age 76, he is facing allegations of a criminal conspiracy to defraud an Illinois hedge fund out of $25 million.
Cowles was arrested at his Scottsville horse farm last week and released on $1 million bail, said Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago. Cowles made his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Chicago on Thursday.
In a criminal complaint filed by Fitzgerald on Tuesday, Cowles was accused of lying to a hedge fund manager, who was not identified, about the nature of a $25 million investment. According to the complaint, Cowles and two associates induced the hedge fund manager to make the investment, promising 10 percent profit per week in a deal that they claimed was being overseen by a Federal Reserve administrator.Well hello, St. Patrick! And Cowles was accused of lying! And Luskin got him off! You can’t make this stuff up. Well, eventually I will see if I can find some court documents, but this is pretty funny, and has to effect the odds of Fitzgerald seeking a rematch with Luskin over Rove.
In addition to Byron’s piece today, don’t miss Paul Mirengoff on CSPAN’s Washington Journal talking about how the Valerie Plame leak case has become the incredible shrinking scandal.