To indict Fitzpatrick when the subject of the indictment is a perjury and the perjury is about irrelevant and immaterial matters is so far out of the norm that there has to be another reason than bringing Fitzpatrick to account. Last time I wrote I said I would try to explore and look for the real reason ex-FBI agent Fitzpatrick was indicted.
When I first read the Fitzpatrick indictment the words of a song I heard a while ago came to mind: “now age has taken her beauty, and sin has left its sad scar, so remember your mothers and sisters boys, and let her sit under the bar.” It seems farfetched that song would trickle through my mind but it did. The reason was the subject of the indictment reminded me of some of the old drunks I used to know who were once good athletes. I’’d go into a bar to have a beer and they would come up to me and before I knew it they were again spurting out stories of their past heroic exploits on the gridiron. They lived in the glorious past; they could not adjust to the present and wanted to relive the past over and over again.
I also thought of some of the words in the poem by A.E. Houseman:
Smart lad, to slip betimes away From fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
Now you will not swell the rout Of lads that wore their honours out, Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man.
The language in the indictment seemed to me to be that of a prosecutor who like the drunk is trying to relive the past; it brings back the Whitey Bulger case to the news again. We can be reminded of it. Again, the papers will cover the Whitey Bulger saga. The prosecutor, the hero of the demise of Whitey, can again strut across the courtroom stage and bring back to the public attention Whitey’s crimes. Is it his attempt as Jane Oliva sang:
Now that I stare at the future
I feel so close to the past
I’m so afraid of tomorrow
Wondering which one is the last
Here in the cold of December
I cling to a fragment of May
I’ll trade you the world I have conquered
For a moment of one yesterday
Give me one more chance at the midway
Stop the clock from spinning around
Give me back the world I remember
One more ride on the merry go round.
Is it that having finished with Whitey’s case and the others relating to it there is a great emptiness that can only be filled by going back over it again? That is one way to look at the indictment.
Another is that it is intended to affect the decisions of the Florida Appeals Court which should soon decide on John Connolly’s appeal that has been argued before it. In his opening statement Wyshak wrote in the indictment that Whitey’s lawyer said he was never an informant for the FBI. He then noted that Whitey paid Connolly “on occasion $5,000, on other occasions $10,000, and on still other occasions $50,000. He paid this money and Connolly gladly accepted it.”
There was no evidence of this in the trial. This is nothing more than a bald statement by counsel that had no evidentiary value. It does not even fit into the allegations in the indictment against Fitzpatrick but it was part of his indictment. Is Wyshak so obsessed that John Connolly will be freed from his wrongful imprisonment that he is indicting another just to put Whitey’s lawyers unproven statements into a record?
One other reason for the indictment is the FBI pushed Wyshak into doing it. Fitzpatrick is heavily disliked in the FBI. First, he disclosed the identity of an informant to a newspaper reporter; second, he turned in his Special Agent in Charge for something that had no consequence; and third, he has suggested other FBI agents up to the highest levels of the bureau were wrongfully empowering Whitey to commit crimes.
My suspicion in this area was heightened when I read in a column by an FBI toady that: “The FBI, by the way, had nothing to do with this. This was right from the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s office.”
He went on to note that current and former agents believe Fitzpatrick is a scapegoat but dismissed this by quoting an unnamed federal prosecutor: (don’t you like these anonymous quotes) “We couldn’t let this go. This guy was an ASAC (assistant special agent in charge). He was ASAC during eight of the [Bulger] murders.”
This is pure BS. Fitzpatrick was ASAC but how is he responsible for any of Whitey’s murders which at the time no one knew about? Has any other FBI SAC or ASAC ever been indicted for something he didn’t know about because murders were committed during his time in office?
There are other possibilities like stopping Fitzpatrick from writing a book or just punishing him for testifying for Whitey. You have your choice: for me it’s more likely another ride on the merry-go-round since he’s done little else lately or the FBI getting its pound of flesh and Wyshak going along as a make-up to it for his past sins against the Bureau.
Very good post.The Connolly angle is the most likely. Wyshak forgets to mention that Connolly was found not guilty of taking bribes, the ring and money by the Boston jury. He was never convicted of taking money from the gangsters. He denied ever taking money and there was never any credible proof he took any. If Fitzpatrick is to be believed that Morris was the leak and not Connolly then his entire prosecution is called into question. What prosecutor in the history of the nation released eight serial killers to get one? What prosecutor let the main leaker of confidential information to the gangsters off and charged an honest man? Who invented a gang known as South Boston? The Winter Hill group was never known as South Boston. He created this fiction to justify his statement after Connolly’s trial that Connolly got too close to the Bulgers and South Boston. He had no proof of any wrongdoing by any other Bulgers and smeared an entire neighborhood. He is a typical half wit prosecutor who believes what he reads in the newspaper and hears on the radio. He is comparable to the lightweight in Baltimore that charged the cops in the Gray case and Nifong in the Duke case.. If the press or the mob demand blood someone becomes a sacrifice. Is this charge a sign of desperation? Att. Brennan said it was more of an indictment of the Federal Government than the defendant.
NC:
Good comment. Poor Fitzpatrick who has done what he has thought right all his life will have to live forever more with this indictment; maybe, that’s all Wyshak wanted so that whenever Fitpatrick does or says anything he will be asked “weren’t you indicted for perjury?” Even if he wins people will say: “he beat the rap” which sends the impression he was guilty but managed to get out of it.
The NY Times has an article on a woman named Chen http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/business/accused-of-spying-for-china-until-she-wasnt.html who worked for the federal government, was arrested and handcuffed by six FBI agents who paraded her off her work site in handcuffs (six guys with little to do) and charged with giving secrets to a foreign government. She was within days of her trial when the case was dismissed. Someone said Fitzpatrick wasn’t well; do you think Wyshak is waiting until he can no longer defend himself?