Paper: Rahm Emanuel talked with Blagojevich Staff About Obama Replacement

12 Dec

Posted by MacRanger as Barack Obama

Tick, tick, tick….

“Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to be White House chief of staff, had conversations with Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration about who would replace Obama in the U.S. Senate, the Chicago Tribune has learned.

The revelation does not suggest Obama’s new gatekeeper was involved in any talk of dealmaking involving the seat. But it does help fill in the gaps surrounding a question that Obama was unable or unwilling to answer this week: Did anyone on his staff have contact with Blagojevich about his choice for the Senate seat?

Blagojevich and John Harris, his former chief of staff, face federal charges in an alleged shakedown involving the vacant Senate seat, which Illinois law grants the governor sole authority to fill.

Obama said Thursday he had never spoken to Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy and was “confident that no representatives” of his had engaged in any dealmaking over the seat with the governor or his team. He also pledged Thursday that in the “next few days” he would explain what contacts his staff may have had with the governor’s office about the Senate vacancy.

Emanuel, who has long been close to both Blagojevich and Obama, has refused to respond to questions about any involvement he may have had with the Blagojevich camp over the Senate pick. A spokeswoman for Emanuel also declined to comment Friday.

One source confirmed that communications between Emanuel and the Blagojevich administration were captured on court-approved wiretaps.

Another source said that contact between the Obama camp and the governor’s administration regarding the Senate seat began the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, when Emanuel made a call to the cell phone of Harris. The conversation took place around the same time press reports surfaced about Emanuel being approached about taking the high-level White House post should Obama win.

Emanuel delivered a list of candidates who would be “acceptable” to Obama, the source said. On the list were Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth, state Comptroller Dan Hynes and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago, the source said. All are Democrats.

Sometime after the election, Emanuel called Harris back to add the name of Democratic Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to the approved list, the source said.”

Another source who has reviewed the taps says it sounds bad for Emanuel, the conversations are detailed and specific. In other words they have him by the you know what. The question is whether or not it stops with him or goes higher. It’s important to understand that there was more than just a “obvious” reason for Emanuel to attempt to fill Obama’s seat, and it’s that reason which is yet to be uncovered by the investigation.

3 Responses

shield

December 13th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
1

“It’s important to understand that there was more than just an “obvious” reason for Emanuel to attempt to fill Obama’s seat, and it’s that reason which is yet to be uncovered by the investigation.”

Wonder if Fitz will actually proceed with this case against Emanuel? We all know Fitz is a dem political hack and his boy won the election. He was after the Bush Administration and convicted an innocent man…so why should we expect Fitz to more forward with Emanuel?
Dan

December 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
2

Shield, How is Fitz a hack? Who are you referring to as an innocent man?
—————-
Profile: Patrick Fitzgerald, a modern-day Eliot Ness
When it comes to the battle against corruption, there are few better places to make your name.

Last Updated: 7:40PM GMT 11 Dec 2008

Patrick Fitzgerald is a workaholic who once decided not to install heating in his flat because he was there so little Photo: REUTERS
More than 70 years after the fall of Al Capone, Chicago has shown the world it remains America’s sleaziest city.

And just as the incorruptible Eliot Ness stepped forward to make his name in the 1930s, another tough-nut ‘Untouchable’ is now ready to make the headlines.

US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald must have known the comparisons would come thick and fast when he arrived in Chicago in 2001 charged with cleaning up the cynical, money-driven local government.

He may not be risking his life raiding illicit distilleries and breweries but the Brooklyn lawyer has already become something of a folk hero.

As he demonstrated at his press conference on Tuesday, Mr Fitzgerald knows, like his predecessor, how to cultivate the press.

He addressed them all on first name terms and showed a colourful turn of phrase and easy-going confidence on stage.

He rattled through the alleged transgressions of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich with a mixture of disgust and delight.

The governor’s conduct, he said, “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave” and was “reminiscent of a salesman meeting his annual sales target”.

Like Ness, Fitzgerald is also a formidable workaholic. As a young prosecutor in New York, he didn’t connect the heating in his flat for several years because he was there so seldom. He often ate his evening meal alone when all else had departed and during long trials would sleep and shower in the office.

Colleagues say Fitzgerald – ‘Fitzy’ to his friends – has little room for a social life and indeed he married only this year at the age of 47, to a teacher Jennifer Letzkus.

His internet blog, which is subtitled ‘Fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way’, reveals there was no time for a honeymoon.

Fitzgerald’s work ethic was inherited from his father, an Irish immigrant who worked as a doorman in Manhattan and never took a holiday as he raised a family of four in Brooklyn, New York.

Attending a Jesuit school and growing up in a strict but loving working class household also gave him a strong sense of right and wrong, friends say, that he has carried into his professional life and has made him genuinely indignant at wrongdoing.

There was an element of the crusader at his press conference, when he spoke about how the culture of corruption in Illinois could be beaten.

“What’s going to make a difference is when people who are approached to pay-to-play [indulge in bribery] first say no, and second report it,” he said.

After graduating from the elite Amherst University, where he played rugby, and Harvard Law School, Fitzgerald began at the New York public prosecutor’s office at the age of 27 and rose quickly through the ranks.

He made his name prosecuting mafia leaders John and Joseph Gambino, and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric who plotted bomb attacks on various US landmarks. He also tried four men for the 1998 US embassy bombings in east Africa and helped to build a criminal case against Osama bin Laden in the wake of those attacks.

He moved in to the national public eye in 2004 after his appointment as special prosecutor in the investigation of the leaking of the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent and the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who had criticised the Iraq war.

The investigation led to a 30-month conviction Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, for perjury and obstruction of justice. Many conservatives felt Fitzgerald overstepped the mark, as no one was ever charged with the underlying crime of the leak, and it was not even clear that Mrs Plame was even a covert officer at the time her name was revealed to journalists.

“He is relentless,” said Bryon York, White House correspondent with the National Review. “But Fitzgerald won the conviction and that was in large part because of his determination.”

Fitzgerald himself would have been as shocked as anyone to be included on People’s Magazine Sexiest Man Alive list in 2005, during the Libby investigation. By that time he was already something of a hero, if not a heart-throb, in Chicago.

Within a year of taking the job as US Attorney for northern Illinois, he began investigating George Ryan, the Republican governor, who in 2006 was sentenced to six years for taking kickbacks on state contracts. He also pursued corruption charges against numerous aides and associates of Richard Daley, the mayor and a Democrat like Mr Blagojevich.

Along the way he successfully prosecuted Conrad Black, the former Telegraph owner, who had a company based in Chicago, for fraud.

Despite his strait-laced resolve, Fitzgerald knows the law is the art of the possible.

According to one journalist who faced prosecution during the Plame case for not revealing his sources, the governor would probably find his tormentor amenable to deal-making.

In an open letter to Mr Blagojevich, Matt Cooper said: “I don’t think you’re dealing with some loon. He’s a hard ass, but a reasonable one.”

But he added as a warning: “Contrition is key here… he can smell a liar. If you beg for mercy, you might get it.”
shield

December 13th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
3

Dream on Dan……….

Federal Sources: Fitzgerald Held Off Blagojevich Bust to Protect Obama Election Chances; Did Obama Fail Ethics Requirements of Illinois Bar?

By Debbie Schlussel
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/

A federal source of mine with ties to Chicago says that FBI agents had enough to prosecute corrupt, helmet-haired Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich back in June, when he was already engaged in some of the blackmail and extortion alleged by the FBI affidavit and other documents associated with his arrest and prosecution.

The source says that the FBI was suddenly ordered by the U.S. Attorney’s Office-and I believe that order came from the top, ie., U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and Justice Department officials in Washington-to hold off on doing anything until after the election, so as not to hurt Obama’s White House bid. Here’s what my inside source says.

I know for a fact FBI Chicago had enough to indict Blagojevich in June. They were 2 weeks from indictment in June based on cooperation and testimony at the Stu Levine trial. Levine was Tony Rezko’s bud, fund raiser for Blago, and our President-Elect.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald: He Protected Them
I wonder what took them so long? My guess is when it started to look like a lock for Obama’s nomination by the Dems, someone at the U.S. Attorney’s Office put it all on hold, so as not to spoil “The Annointed One’s” shot.
Don’t forget how Fitzgerald treated Lewis “Scooter” Libby in going after him (the guy who wasn’t even the source of the leak, and the liberal source of the leak, Richard Armitage wasn’t even scratched). Compare that with this kid gloves treatment of Obamessiah.

Frankly, it’s obvious that Obama knew of the “sale” of the Senate seat. He acknowledged he knew of the “sale,” and “we turned it down.” And I believe he knew far more than he’s letting on.

But as an attorney and officer of the court, he had a duty to report it to authorities or be vulnerable to an attack on his law license with the Illinois State Bar, of which he’s a member.

And it appears, he did not report this to authorities. So, who will be the first to file a grievance against attorney Barack Obama with the appropriate Illinois authorities? Remember, there’s precedent for something like this. There was that certain Democrat President who lost his law license over lying under oath. ‘Memba him?

Have at it.