Homegrown by Jeffrey Toobin

Author:Jeffrey Toobin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Jamie Gorelick, the deputy attorney general and Garland’s boss, took charge of the talent search for the prosecutors who would try McVeigh. It’s customary for the local United States attorney to prosecute crimes that take place within his or her jurisdiction, but Gorelick ruled out that option from the beginning. Patrick Ryan, who was about to take office as the new United States attorney in Oklahoma City, had been a civil litigator, with no experience trying criminal cases. Besides, his office only had a handful of prosecutors, and they were preoccupied with getting their damaged facilities back up and running. In addition, Gorelick was a meritocratic snob. She wanted an elite team for this high-profile assignment, and she didn’t trust the Oklahoma prosecutors with that kind of responsibility. (The resulting tension between the outsiders and locals in the Justice Department would endure.)

After Main Justice, as the headquarters of the department is known, put out the word that Gorelick and Garland were looking for experienced outsiders to try the case, they were inundated with applicants. Again, the O. J. Simpson case figured prominently in the process. Gorelick wanted prosecutors who would not seek the fame and notoriety that came with the assignment. Leslie Caldwell, who came from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, was a top candidate. She had won cases against some of the most ruthless criminals in New York and never sought personal glory. But Gorelick had a different idea of the perfect candidate. She figured that the case was going to be tried in Oklahoma or somewhere nearby, and she wanted someone from “the heartland.”

One application caught her eye from the outset. Joe Hartzler had been a summer associate at Gorelick’s firm when she was in private practice. She remembered his diligence and midwestern reserve, which would be an important qualification if this was going to be the un-O.J. prosecution. He even had a boyish cowlick that dipped over his forehead, giving him, even on the brink of middle age, a Tom Sawyer look. Then forty-three, Hartzler had grown up in central Ohio, gone to college at Amherst, and then graduated first in his class at the law school at American University. After a clerkship on the D.C. Circuit, he followed his then-girlfriend, now-wife to her home state of Illinois. Hartzler joined the storied U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. He investigated public corruption—the bread and butter in the Northern District of Illinois—but he’d also prosecuted bombing cases, which were a relative rarity in the federal system. Those prosecutions led to convictions of several members of the FALN—the Puerto Rican nationalist group—for a terrorist campaign in Illinois. When Garland checked out Hartzler with contacts in Chicago, he received glowing reports; Hartzler was said to have an “affidavit face”—a look of extreme trustworthiness. After a decade in the office, Hartzler had been promoted to chief of the criminal division—a position of great responsibility for a line assistant.

But there was a problem. Starting in the mid-1980s, Hartzler started having trouble walking—his right foot dragged, and he kept stubbing his toe.

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