Fired FBI Director James Comey has retained former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald as one of his personal attorneys, bringing in a heavy-hitting former prosecutor, close friend and longtime colleague to help him navigate his dramatic role as a potential witness in the investigation of President Trump’s campaign and potential obstruction of justice.
Two Capitol Hill sources independently confirmed to TPM that Fitzgerald was serving as a lawyer for Comey.
The hiring adds an additional twist to President Trump’s recent decision to pardon Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, for his role in the Valerie Plame affair.
Comey, then the deputy attorney general, was the man who authorized the special counsel’s investigation into “the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee’s identity” in late 2003, the case that eventually led to Libby’s conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice. His choice for special counsel, the prosecutor who got the guilty verdict on Libby, was none other than Fitzgerald.
Comey and Fitzgerald have been close friends for more than three decades, going back to their time working together in the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s Office starting in the late 1980s, and knew each other even before then. Fitzgerald is the godfather of one of Comey’s children. In a joint interview in 2008 about their tight bond, Comey described Fitzgerald as a “close friend” as they reminisced about the glory days working their first cases together.
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