Blago Barks

The trouble with serial liars is that eventually they get confused and forget which lie they told previously.  When they get caught lying, it is embarrassing, but not usually fatal.  For example: think of all those inconvenient videos of Obama promising to put the health care reform debate on C-Span.  But occasionally people like this fall into a perjury trap.  They are forced to answer questions in situation where it is a felony to lie.  The most recent example was Lewis Libby.  In his case he was convicted of perjury for allegedly lying to the FBI about an undocumented conversation with Tim Russert.  The jury believed Russert’s version of events, so they convicted Libby of perjury:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030600648.html

The problem for Obama is that he gave interviews to the FBI regarding Tony Rezko.  The FBI probably recorded those interviews.  At a minimum, they took very good notes.  Blagojevich is calling Obama as a witness to discredit Rezko.  Blagojevich points out that Rezko has claimed on several occasions to have gotten special favors from Obama.  Rezko’s representations regarding conversations and connections with Obama are very different from what Obama said happened.

Obama is going to try and just squash the subpoena on the basis that, as President of the United States he cannot possibly spare the time.  It’s not like he had time to play a lot of golf!  Unfortunately there is legal precedent for requiring a sitting U.S. President to testify in court regarding incidents that took place before he was sworn into office.  Like him or not, Blagojevich has the right to a fair trial.  The Blagojevich lawyers know this very well and have cited this in their brief.

What makes this worse is that when the Blagojevich lawyers filed their motion they did not do a good enough job in making sure the redacted parts stayed redacted.  Within seconds the full original motion was posted on the internet.  The judge is guaranteed to be pissed, but that doesn’t help Obama.

At a minimum, it is pretty hard to read this motion without realizing that Obama’s relationship with Rezko was far more extensive than reported in the main stream media.  But the real problem is that if Obama does testify and it turns out any of his prior statements were lies, he may just fall into a perjury trap, just like Lewis Libby.  Remember, Lewis Libby was convicted of obstructing justice for allegedly lying about something that was not even a crime.

Odds are pretty high that the people in the Obama administration are trying desperately to find an exit strategy.  In effect, Blagojevich has sent them the ultimate; “let’s make a deal message.”  At a minimum, this is going to be fun to watch.  It is a lot more dangerous for Obama than most people realize.

TDM