CBS (Andrew Cohen): Fitzgerald performance revelation not included in DOJ doc-dump - leaked to WP

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/03/20/couricandco/entry2587154.shtml

At Justice: Making A List, Checking It Twice
Posted by Andrew Cohen

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Second, this information about Fitzgerald was not included in the thousands of pages of material released late last night by the Justice Department in response to Congressional requests. Instead its contents were leaked to the Post by an anonymous source. So the question they’ll be asking around Washington today, and perhaps for quite some time, is this: what else has the Justice Department and the White House chosen on executive privilege grounds to refrain from releasing to the legislative branch and, by extension, to us? You are going to hear that question like a mantra over the next few days.

That’s why the ballyhooed disclosures of the material last night is not likely to do much to quell the furor over the dismissal of those prosecutors. To paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Congress despite the new material still doesn’t know what it doesn’t know about the firings—but it does know that it doesn’t know all it needs to know. In Washington, that’s a recipe for a lot of whining, a lot of posturing, and at least a few more pitched battles to come. As for Fitzgerald? All I can think of is Woody Allen’s famous line: “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to be a member.”

Justice Department fired two with same rating.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys ... who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who ... chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show.

Fitzgerald's ranking adds another dimension to the prosecutor firings, which began as a White House proposal to remove all 93 U.S. attorneys after the 2004 elections and evolved into the coordinated dismissal of eight last year, a move that has infuriated lawmakers and led to calls for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to resign.