Some Tidbits from US Attorney’s Blagojevich Press Release
By LisaB on December 9, 2008 at 1:48 PM in Current Affairs
Governor Rod Blagojevich of IL was arrested at the same time as his chief of staff this morning (6:51 CST) on corruption charges. Anyone paying the least amount of attention to recent stories about Illinois politics should find this not at all surprising. What’s interesting is the simultaneous arrest and its swiftness.
The release from the US Attorney’s office is very interesting, but on first reading, here are a few interesting tidbits.
It seems Blagojevich’s wife was in on at least some corruption.
Read the rest ->
On November 10, Blagojevich, his wife, Harris, Governor General Counsel, Advisor B and other Washington-based advisors participated at different times in a two-hour phone call in which they allegedly discussed, among other things, a deal involving the SEIU. Harris said they could work out a deal with the union and the President-elect where SEIU could help the President-elect with Blagojevich’s appointment of Senate Candidate 1, while Blagojevich would obtain a position as the National Director of the Change to Win campaign and SEIU would get something favorable from the President-elect in the future.
Blagojevich was pressuring the Chicago Tribune – not a secret – but it also appears the owner was willing to somehow play ball. Either that or he was playing dumb. But it is interesting the Tribune declared bankruptcy yesterday. I can’t believe this is completely unrelated.
In a November 11 intercepted call, Harris allegedly told Blagojevich that Tribune Financial Advisor talked to Tribune Owner and Tribune Owner “got the message and is very sensitive to the issue.” Harris told Blagojevich that according to Tribune Financial Advisor, there would be “certain corporate reorganizations and budget cuts coming and, reading between the lines, he’s going after that section.” Blagojevich allegedly responded. “Oh. That’s fantastic.” After further discussion, Blagojevich said, “Wow. Okay, keep our fingers crossed. You’re the man. Good job, John.”
I wonder if this precipitated the arrest:
Also on December 5, Blagojevich and three others allegedly discussed whether to move money out of the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund to avoid having the money frozen by federal authorities and also considered the possibility of prepaying the money to Blagojevich’s criminal defense attorney with an understanding that the attorney would donate the money back at a later time if it was not needed. They also discussed opening a new fund raising account named Citizens for Blagojevich with new contributions.
It looks as if the BO camp was trying to suggest a woman for the senate seat. The US Attorney’s office was careful to keep some names out of the release, including “Senate Candidate 1″ and “Senate Candidate 5″ etc. But they did let a pronoun slip.
In a conversation with Harris on November 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them.”
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Senate Candidate 1 eventually removed herself from consideration for the open seat.
Could that have been Lisa Madigan, AG, once touted for the seat by the Sun-Times? Or Rep. Jan Schakowsky? Thoughts?
This is going to get interesting all around. Isn’t it completely amazing our PEBO emerged from this political slime so completely uncorrupted? Whew!
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