George Washington Bridge Prosecutor Draws on His Past

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman Worked on Clinton Investigations

By Heather Haddon, WSJ
Feb. 28, 2014 8:57 p.m. ET

For Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney leading the investigation into the George Washington Bridge scandal, politically charged government investigations are nothing new.

During his tenure at the U.S. Department of Justice in the 1990s, Mr. Fishman was part of a core team of prosecutors who advised former Attorney General Janet Reno as she weighed how to move forward with an investigation into campaign-finance issues surrounding the 1996 election. He was also assigned to protect the department's interests during the congressional investigation into President Bill Clinton's real-estate affairs, known as Whitewater.

And as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor, he oversaw 124 public-corruption convictions from 2010 through 2013, according to preliminary statistics released by his office.

So Mr. Fishman and his advocates have reacted with a certain degree of frustration as his priorities have been contrasted with Gov. Chris Christie's, his predecessor as New Jersey U.S. attorney. Mr. Christie oversaw more corruption convictions and received more news coverage but worked with broader federal anticorruption statutes than Mr. Fishman, who is known more for health-care fraud and cybercrime cases.

(More here.)