It was a rocky end to a charmed presidential campaign.
On December 9, 2008, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was
arrested and charged with trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate
seat. It was an act of patronage so galling, prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald insisted, “[T]he conduct would make Lincoln roll over
in his grave.” It was a deep pothole for the president-elect,
then riding high on the goodwill of the American people. Although
Obama wasn’t directly implicated in the corruption, the intrigue
of the case threatened to ensnare top advisors Rahm Emanuel and
Valerie Jarrett, both of whom were more directly involved.
Obama immediately absolved himself of any responsibility.
He insisted he “was not aware of what was happening” with Blago.
In a statement released later that month, the White House
claimed, “The president-elect had no contact or
communication with Gov. Blagojevich or members of his staff about
the Senate seat.”
Two officials under oath in Blagojevich’s trial have
now contradicted those statements. Unless there’s been a bizarre
conspiracy of perjury, Obama was lying.
In April, Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers revealed that an
unnamed union official had connected Obama to the conspiracy.
According to FBI tapes, an unnamed union president
(Politico believes him to be former SEIU president Andy
Stern) testified that one of his deputies was asked by Obama to
reach out to Blagojevich and float the idea of appointing Valerie
Jarrett to fill the vacant Senate seat. (Jarrett hadn’t yet
decided to accompany the president to Washington as an advisor.)
An interview with the liaison himself confirmed this.
Then Blago’s former chief of staff, John Harris, identified
another intermediary between Obama and Blagojevich. John Wyma, a
lobbyist and friend of Rahm Emanuel’s, had been dispatched by the
president-elect to tell Blago that Obama “would be thankful and
appreciative” if Jarrett was made the next senator from Illinois.
Wyma talked to Harris who then phoned Blagojevich, resulting in
an expletive-laden temper tantrum from the loony ex-governor.
“They’re not willing to give me anything but appreciation, f—k
them,” Blago ranted.
None of this directly implicates the president in the
attempted sale of his Senate lectern. But it does make him a
liar. According to his statement on the Blagojevich mess released
in December 2008, “In various conversations with transition staff
and others, the president-elect expressed his preference that
Valerie Jarrett work with him in the White House. He also stated
that he would neither stand in her way if she wanted to pursue
the Senate seat nor actively seek to have her or any other
particular candidate appointed to the vacancy.” But until Jarrett
decided to head for the White House, Obama was sending signal
flares up on her behalf in front of the Illinois governor’s
mansion.
Then things got murkier. Harris testified that not only had
Obama maneuvered on Jarrett’s behalf, he knew all along that
Blagojevich wanted a quid pro quo. “The president understands
that the governor would be willing to make the appointment of
Valerie Jarrett as long as he gets what he’s asked for.…The
governor gets the Cabinet appointment he’s asked for,” Harris
later testified. Far from being “not aware of what was
happening,” as he claimed in his statement, Obama knew exactly
what the governor was up to.
To be fair, there’s little evidence that Team Obama ever
assented to Blago’s attempted quid pro quo and even less that
Obama himself approved it. Blagojevich was spitting with fury in
those recorded phone conversations for a reason. The
president-elect was refusing to play ball.
But it does show that Obama was immersed far deeper in the
Blagojevich cesspool than he initially claimed. The president
knew exactly who he wanted to fill his Senate seat and was fully
aware of Blagojevich’s intentions.
It begs the question: What else does Obama know? It’s time
to subpoena the president to the Blagojevich trial and ascertain
just how high up this corruption went. Obama is the one missing
link in this entire detective story. Blago’s lawyers asked the
judge to subpoena the president after the union official exposed
his lie, but the judge refused. Nevertheless, Rahm Emanuel and
Valerie Jarrett were later subpoenaed.
Even if Obama isn’t charged with anything more than lying,
he’s still guilty of diving into Chicago’s worst political
swamps. Obama was all-in for Blagojevich early on, when Blago
first ran for governor in 2002. According to Rahm Emanuel, a
small group of advisors burned the midnight oil to get Blago
elected: Clinton strategist David Wilhelm, an unnamed second
aide, Emanuel himself, and Barack Obama. Rahm told the New
Yorker that he and Obama “participated in a small group that
met weekly when Rod was running for governor. We basically laid
out the general election, Barack and I and these two.” (After
Blago was arrested, Emanuel claimed that he’d misspoken. Funny
how that happens.)
As late as 2006, Blagojevich still had an ally in Obama,
even as his approval numbers plunged to the lowest of any
governor in America and the Illinois press was openly speculating
that he was a sociopath.
Now Blagojevich has soured on his former friends. It’s been
reported that he was furious that he’d taken the fall while Obama
and Emanuel were allowed to walk into the White House with their
hands washed clean. As information drips out of his trial that
undermines the president’s credibility, he may get his revenge
yet.
An outrageously-coiffed, sociopathic former governor trying
to bring down the president of the United States at his own
trial. Only in Chicago.
