BLAGOLAND

The Rod Blagojevich trial continues to represent very high risk for the Obama administration.  The prosecutor has been determined to convict Blagojevich but seems spectacularly uninterested in the other players.  One of those players is Rahm Emmanuel.  According to the following article, the FBI taped a phone conversation between Rod Blagojevich and Rahm Emmanuel:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/08/rahm-emanuel-asked-rod-bl_n_872999.html?icid=main%7Chtmlws-main-n%7Cdl3%7Csec3_lnk1%7C215458

In this particularly tape Rahm Emmanuel apparently asked Blagojevich to appoint someone to replace him in congress when Emmanuel became Obama’s Chief of Staff:

In the conversation, according to the transcript filed in the motion, Emanuel tells Blagojevich the appointment would give a successor an advantage in winning the seat in an eventual special election and that he wanted someone who didn’t want the job in Congress as a “lifetime commitment.”

Emanuel tells Blagojevich that Forrest Claypool, then a county official, was interested in the congressional seat for “like one term or two max.” Emanuel recently named Claypool to head the Chicago Transit Authority, which oversees one of largest subway and bus networks in the nation.

Blagojevich tells Emanuel his lawyers say he cannot do that as it would be illegal.  Emanuel responded with a creative strategy on how Blagojevich can circumvent the law:

 Emanuel responds he knows that to be true and suggests a legal alternative: If Emanuel steps down three weeks before the end of his term, Blagojevich could make an interim appointment of someone who would take the seat up to the election.

“OK? You would appoint somebody to finish those three weeks …,” Emanuel says in the transcript. “It gives him a head start (over other candidates) and a presumption. So I am going to check that legally out, and then we will, uh, and I, this is between you and I …”

This may not be illegal, but it comes awfully close to influence peddling.  When Emmanuel says he will remember this, the implication is that Blagojevich will be rewarded.  Being “remembered” by the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States is a big deal.  The FBI apparently taped several conversations between Blagojevich and a cast of thousands.  Several of those conversation involved people like Rahm Emmanuel.  Prior to now, the prosecutor has only released the tapes he wanted to release and redacted them to only point the finger at Blagojevich.  I have always felt that this “selective disclosure” was unfair to Blagojevich and was designed to shield others, potentially including Obama, The lid is now officially off that box.  This could go in a million different directions.

It is always dangerous when lies start to unravel.  Once the lid comes off, some people are going to be asking some very interesting questions.  Up until now, while the suspicions were always there, there was no evidence to consider.  That all changed dramatically with the release of this very interesting transcript.

Blagojevich’s defense has always been that he did nothing different then everyone else with regard to the politics of choosing Obama’s replacement in the Senate.  It looks like he’s got a point! 

In some ways this is similar to the Anthony Weiner case.  He made one mistake and accidentally sent one tweet to the wrong person.  That is all it took for his whole sordid history to become public knowledge.  I suspect there are a lot of people in the Obama administration who are very nervous tonight.

TDM

One thought on “BLAGOLAND

  1. Out of all the crap that has gone on and the apparent evidence to support illegal activities by some of the members of the current administration, you would think “our” government would have no trouble finding people somewhere in the system of “checks and balances” who had enough intestinal fortitude to put a stop to this obvious and dangerous series of power plays by our elected “leadership”.

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