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29 June 2014

Risen Persecutor a Character in Ignatius Novel

This description of book character "Walter Ives" appears to fit William Michael Welch, lead prosecutor of NY Times reporter James Risen (if mistaken let us know who fits Ives -- which may be a composite: <cryptome[at]earthlink.net>):

http://cryptome.org/2014-info/doj-risen/doj-risen.htm

http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/power-players/
william-welch-obama-administrations-point-man-to-stop-leaks.php

Welch, a 47-year-old litigator ... has spent his entire career in the Justice Department. Welch has earned a reputation among fellow prosecutors and defense attorneys as a tough-as-nails, determined litigator. But many of those same people also say he is often overly aggressive in deciding which cases to bring and how to prosecute them, and that his ambition has sometimes blinded him to the weaknesses in his cases. “There’s a fine line between being zealous and overly zealous,” says one defense attorney who has lost to Welch in court. “He crossed that line on several occasions.”

Welch is now the administration’s point man in its historic anti-leaks campaign. He is prosecuting a former CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, and he has subpoenaed James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter, to testify about whether Sterling was the source for the journalist’s book State of War, which revealed that the CIA may have botched classified operations against Iran.

Ignatius, David (2014-06-02). The Director: A Novel (Kindle Locations 4085-4124). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

[Weber is a newly appointed CIA Director. Ruth Savin is CIA Counsel. Jankowski, Weber's predecessor, is suspected of financial graft. Beasley is head of Clandestine Operations.]

When Weber got home the night after meeting with Ruth Savin, he put another SIM card in the Nokia and called a very particular friend. Walter Ives was the deputy chief of the Criminal Division at the Justice Department, who had responsibility for national security cases. He had been in that section since he’d left law school in the 1980s. Weber knew him because they had been classmates in college. Weber had been a lacrosse jock; the rough, portly Ives had been the team manager. Weber had made only a handful of good friends in college, but Ives was one of them.

Ives handled all the sensitive matters for Justice: the espionage cases, the surveillance and warrant applications; the prosecutions of intelligence officers that had to be dropped because the information was too sensitive to reveal. He was bald, with a large belly and the demeanor of a career civil servant: He bought his suits at Jos. A. Bank. He lived simply in a house in Silver Spring that was the nicest he could afford on his Justice Department salary. His compensation was that if there was one man in government who was trusted with all the secrets, it was Walter Ives.

Weber called Ives at home and asked to meet that night at a bar on G Street behind the FBI building where they used to go drinking when Weber came to D.C. for visits early in his business career. Ives didn’t ask why; he hadn’t seen Weber since he had taken the CIA job, but he knew he wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important.

The bar was a dingy old Irish pub that had survived in seedy decay even as the surrounding neighborhood became chic. This was once a place where broken Justice Department lawyers and FBI agents used to spend the afternoons pretending they were out doing casework, before the invention of the cell phone made such subterfuge impossible.

Ives shambled in. He was wearing a denim work jacket and a pair of trousers held up by suspenders, which made his stomach look round as a medicine ball. He wore thick glasses, and he looked from a distance like he might have wandered in from a homeless shelter. Weber looked ten years younger than his classmate.

When Ives sat down in the booth across from Weber, he smiled contentedly. He liked the fact that Weber, whom he had always regarded as a straight shooter, had become CIA director. Ives regarded misuse of government office as an outrage.

Weber ordered a whiskey; his guest requested a 7UP. That was another thing about Ives: He liked to hang out in bars, but he didn’t drink.

“You’re handling the Jankowski prosecution, correct?” asked Weber, after they had shared pleasantries.

“Jankowski is a jerk. That guy has driven his last Mercedes convertible, if I have anything to do with it.” Ives still spoke with a New York accent, a vestige of his boyhood in Queens.

“Is he going down?”

Ives nodded. “He’ll plead out. I have fifty counts of wire fraud before I even get started with conspiracy. A jury would eat him alive.”

“I need a favor,” said Weber.

“I don’t do favors.”

“Then this isn’t a favor. It’s a matter of national security.”

“That’s different,” said Ives. “What do you need?”

...

“Sweet. How did you crack it?”

“The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a great piece of legislation. That’s all I have to say on that subject.”

“So Beasley gave Jankowski the name of Mr. Fixit in Cyprus?”

“Correct.”

“What else do you have on him? I need to really scare the shit out of him, Walter.”

...

Ives sighed, like a man resigned to do the right thing despite the rules.

“Okay, I’ll give you something you can use. This isn’t grand jury information, technically.”

“Whatever you say. I’m listening.”

“Jankowski tried to use Russian contacts to hide his money. We think he got the contacts’ names from Beasley.”

“Jesus, Walter, that’s pretty good. You got any details I can work with?”