A Hugh Hewitt Show listener responded to some of the goings-on surrounding the mechanics of the investigation US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is running of the Blagojevich scandal in Chicago. Hewitt published this correspondence on his blog, and I've re-posted it here.

This is a facinating read that shines a bright light into the precarious process of navigating this type of investigation.

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From an Assistant United States Attorney:

Caught some of the show yesterday after the release of the Obama internal report.
I know you're off the air for a couple weeks, but I thought I'd mention a couple of things:

First, the "false statement" statute is 18 USC Sec. 1001 (not 2001).

Second, neither the FBI nor US Attorney's Office puts witnesses under oath when they are interviewed. The oath is only administered before testimony before a GJ [Grand Jury]. Agents are not authorized to administer an oath, nor are prosecutors.

Nevertheless, the existence of the 1001 statute has the same functional effect. Any intentional misstatement or omission of a material fact when being questioned by a federal law enforcement agent about a matter under investigation is a felony, oath or no oath. That's why Libby was charged both with perjury before the GJ and making false statements to the FBI during his earlier interviews.

As for the order of the witness interviews, its really only speculation, and witness availability has a lot to do with it, but in my experience having done a few wiretap cases involving drugs back in California, you start with the recorded conversations as your basic record. I would then pull the telephone tolls of every person who was recorded, and I would want to know who they spoke to on the phone immediately before and immediately after each recorded conversation. So, if Emanuel is recorded at 12:00 noon talking to [Gov. Blago.'s Chief of Staff] Harris about appointing Jarrett, and at 12:15 there is a telephone toll showing a call to Obama, I would want to ask Obama about the contents of that phone call. If there was a call at 12:20 from Emanuel to Jarrett, I would want to ask Jarrett about that phone call -- keeping in mind that I know what it is Emanuel and Harris talked about because they are recorded. So, it's sometimes easy to pick-up on prevarications and inconsistencies when you start getting explanations that don't sound right. Once you have the interviews done of the people who were contacted around the same time as key recorded conversations you go back to the person who was recorded and ask him about the unrecorded conversations that came before and after the recorded conversations.

This is really where the current environment -- the same as the environment Libby found himself in -- borders on the unfair. Fitzgerald knows -- as any good prosecutor would know and take advantage of -- that the people he wants to talk to cannot assert their Fifth Amendment rights for political reasons. If I was Emanuel's lawyer, it would be my advice that he not be interviewed - he has only his best recollection of what he has been recorded as saying, and he doesn't get to listen to his conversations prior to answering questions about them. Second, he has no idea what the other people being interviewed are saying about unrecorded conversations they had with him.

For a prosecutor this is the equivalent of "broken field running" -- you're through the line or scrimmage and behind the linebackers, and everyone else is trying to catch-up to where you are. Fitzgerald has probably 3-4 guys/gals working on this full time -- meaning they spend all day comparing transcripts, subpoenaed documents, and interview notes looking for opportunities to lay traps for people about to be interviewed. That was the undoing of Libby and almost Rove. When the prosecutor calls you back to the GJ for the 3rd and 4th time, its not because he's still genuinely unsure about your testimony. He's asking you to navigate the minefield of the record that has been created to that point under oath. Your missteps are going to become his indictment. No normal person would go back to the GJ time after time, but Fitzgerald knows that he's going to get whatever he asks for because doing otherwise would make it look like Obama's people have something to hide.

The report comes out late in the day on Tuesday, Dec. 23. They know that most folks like yourself are going to be off the air on Wed, or they are going to have holiday themed shows. Thurs, is obviously not a news day, and Fri is likely going to be the same. Next you have the dead week between Christmas and New Years.

Obama is in Hawaii until Jan. 2 with no public events planned where he might be asked questions. Emanuel is in Africa where he is out of contact on a long planned family vacation.

Consider that again -- the incoming WH Chief of Staff, in a "change of parties" transition from one Presidency to the next which is less than 4 weeks away -- and he's in Africa??????

And they want the press to have nothing on this story other than their self-serving exoneration of all key staffers.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

emphasis and links added

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A few quick thoughts:
(1) The much-lauded-and-referenced "Report" is an exhaustive 5 pages long. FIVE. As I read through it, all I could hear was, "Move along, move along ... there's nothing to see here..."
(2) Obama's number-one strategy for Dealing With Unpleasantness seems to be going away, doing and saying nothing, and hiding behind holidays and other national events. (the Obama-enabling media makes this especially easy.) And by the way, does anybody else get a little uneasy that our Prez-elect has a tendency to leave the continent at the drop of a hat? I know we all this modern technology and what-not, but geez - a little engine trouble and we've got ourselves a major problem.
(3) You know Rahm (and others in Obama's ranks) is doing some long, hard thinking along the lines of, "How hard do I fight? Will protecting myself take down Obama? Will Obama reward me for taking a fall? How do I get out of this? What's my exit strategy?" They know they are the only ones looking out for themselves. Obama's campaign is strewn with his fallen "compatriots."

All-in-all, this certainly does not seem to be the kind of change I can believe in.