patrickfitzgerald2005

Notes from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s live press conference, 11:13am 12/09/08, with Robert D. Grant Special Prosecutor in Charge.

It’s a sad day for Illinois.

Prosecutor’s office stopped Blagojevich’s political corruption crime spree

Blagojevich attempted to sell Obama’s Senate seat.

These allegations go back 8 weeks.

Investigations into Blagojevich have gone back years, involving pay-to-play conduct.

Recent trial of Blagojevich associate (Tony Rezko, also an Obama friend), linked Blago to corruption.

Ethics in Government Act would take effect on January 1st, 2009 — so Blago wanted to commit as much corruption as possible before these new restrictions would apply.

Blago worked feverishly to get as much money from state contractors as possible, shaking them down, before the end of the year.

Example: a month ago a $1.8 billion tollway project was announced. Blago asked one of the recipients of that contract to give him $100,000 in political contributions.

After it became clear that Blago was speeding up and increasing his pay-to-play schemes, Fitzgerald asked court for more extraordinary means of investigation. Bug was placed in his campaign offices and tap was placed on his home phone.

Tap and bug caught Blago committing crimes.

Example: Children’s Memorial Hospital. Blago awarded $8 million in reimbursement funding to the hospital, but Blago’s price would be a $50,000 contribution from the CEO of the hospital. The contribution never came, and so Blago tried to pull back the hospital funding.

Example: Horse Racing. Blago wanted $100,000 to make horse racing legislation happen for someone who would benefit from this.

Extortion attempt against the Chicago Tribune. Blago told Tribune that if they wanted to sell Wrigley Field, they needed to fire people from the Editorial Board that Blago didn’t like.

If the Tribune fired these people, then the state would help the Tribune with Wrigley’s sale.

Obama’s Senate seat was ‘a valuable thing, you just don’t give it away’.

Blago wanted a number of things in exchange for the Senate appointment:

1. Appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services

2. Ambassadorship

3. Appointment to a private foundation

4. Higher paying job for his wife Patti Blagojevich

5. Campaign contributions

One of Blago’s schemes was a three-way deal involving unions and Obama:

A. Cushy Union Job given to him at a high rate of pay so he could make money

B. The Union (most likely SEIU) would then get benefits from Obama

C. Obama would then get to choose his replacement

This scheme lost steam when Valerie Jarret (Senate Candidate 1) took herself out of the running (when she accepted a job at the White House as Advisor to the President).

After this fell apart with Jarret no longer interested in the job, another Senate Candidate approached with offer of campaign contributions. This was pure pay-to-play, with $500,000 to $1 million in campaign contributions offered to make a certain man Senator. Blago was concerned he’d be stiffed on this deal and wanted assurances that he would actually get paid.

Blago wanted the money up front. He realized that people were listening and did not want to talk on the phone, but wanted to do things in person.

Blago also wanted to appoint himself to the Senate to:

1. avoid impeachment

2. have access to greater financial resources if indicted

3. make his wife a lobbyist

4. make himself viable to run for office in 2016

5. generate speaking fees

Special Prosecutor will be going forward with the investigation, looking into the people who Blago had been dealing with.

This is a moment of truth for Illinois: wide-ranging schemes throughout the state. The government needs people in Illinois to come forward and speak out.

The press asked if the willingness to play is illegal in a pay-to-play scheme…meaning, are the people who negotiated but did not actually go through with anything culpable as well?

Government will be looking into what schemes were out there, who schemed, and what contributions were made.

Blago will still be governor today and can still make Obama’s replacement.

It is not clear how much of this Obama knows about.

Government was not going to wait until Blago appointed Obama’s replacement.

Illinois state legislature has the power to impeach Blago.

All of this happened despite former Governor George Ryan going to prison for corruption himself. Blago promised Hope! and Change! from the corruption of Ryan, and then Blago was even more corrupt than the man he replaced.

Senator Dick Durbin has been requesting Bush commute George Ryan’s sentence or pardon him.

Jesse Jackson Jr. or Emil Jones sure look like Candidate 5 in the complaint: their connections with the SEIU could make the things Blago wanted happen, the way Candidate 5 was supposed to make union matters happen.

Blago was arrested at 6am. The FBI came to his door after waking him up and asking him to come downstairs without a scene before the media were aware. They handcuffed him.

Needed to act before Blago could further damage the state of Illinois or the United States Senate.

What involvement do Obama and Rahm Emanuel have in all of this? The complaint does not contain mention of either of them – which does not mean they were not involved, it just means the complaint does not mention them.

What involvement does Jan Schakowsky have in all of this? Her husband is convicted felon Robert Creamer.

Scheming/Conspiracy to commit a crime and actually committing a crime are two separate things; but it is a crime in itself to scheme/conspire. The investigation will sort through all of this.

Obama

Obama exclaims, "What? This is not the Governor Rod Blagojevich that I knew! Who is this large-haired criminal in a smurf-blue tie like mine?"

How much did Obama know and when did he know it?

UPDATE: Political Punch finds at least one instance where it appears Obama is lying about what he knows about all of this.  Obama claims, today, that he never spoke to the Governor about filling his Senate seat. David Axelrod, however, said on November 23rd that Obama and Blagojevich were, in fact, talking about the Senate seat.

Now Axelrod says he misspoke on November 23rd.

This seems to be another instance in which Obama’s team will say, “What Obama Really Meant”, or play Obama’s other favorite game, where he can claim he never spoke DIRECTLY to Blagojevich, since it was most likely their aides and staff talking to one another. “I never talked to Blagojevich” in very literal terms would then mean, to him, that the two of them were never in the same room together in person talking — with no acknowledgement of what their teams could have been up to.

Hope!

Change!

New Kind of Politics!