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Feds: Obama Wouldn't Play Ball With Blago
From Fitzgerald's statement:
In a conversation with Harris on November 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew that the President-elect wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but "they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them."
Looks like Obama wouldn't pay to play.
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Josh
Zachary
But, but, but....if Obama lived in the same state as a corrupt Governor, Obama must be corrupt too. Can't you libs see that?
Sorry...just channeling my inner freeper.
December 9, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
We have four more years to wait until we deal with that in Obama's re-election campaign; can't we get a break?
December 9, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you kidding me? You only think you need a break. What you need is a diversion.
Now is the time to start working on repealing term limits for POTUS. I'm not talking about the full court press - that can wait until 2013/14, just some forward momentum and insertion into the dialogue.
Hijinks will ensue, in a head-asplody kind of way.
Investment tip: Orville Redenbacher, whoever makes Jiffy Pop.
December 10, 2008 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Would that be the same thing like buying undeveloped land somewhere near Crawford, Tx and call it a ranch?
December 9, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
The word down here in Austin is that the "ranch" in Crawford was an old missile base with a silo that he got on a sweetheart deal.
I thought (only briefly when I first heard this) of taking a look at Crawford via Google Maps, but quickly reconsidered. I got a record!
December 9, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, guilty by association! Thank god Obama resigned from his senate seat as early as he did.
December 9, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm reading this stuff, and so far I have seen nothing to substantiate the charges in what Fitzgerald made public. It sounds more like a guy thinking things like, if I become a Senator me and my wife will be set for life because we can lobby and serve on boards. Which is true. Part of the allegation is, he promised to appoint a candidate that unions wanted if he was made Secretary of Health and Human Services. Um, is that corruption, or political horsetrading? If that's illegal, I'm sure indictments are imminent for the governors of New York and Delaware, who I am sure have been having similar conversations with various interest groups in their states.
December 9, 2008 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think the Feds would bust a governor just for typical horse-trading.
Yes, this is the Bush DOJ but given that Blago was/is notoriously corrupt and that they were wiretapping him for quite some time, I'm going to give the Feds the benefit of the doubt until we have evidence otherwise.
December 9, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
When did the benefit of the doubt shift from the defendent to the prosecutor?
Blago may be guilty as sin and this might be just the tip, but a lengthy investigation is not proof on anything.
For example, I am sure there will be "ongoing investigations" of Obama's citizenship and his "ties to radicals" for the next 8 years.
December 9, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did you read the writ put together by the FBI? I found it earlier on Huffpo and read it (PDF) but I am frankly too tired to look it up for you. I suggest you do the work if you doubt that he is really guilty.
I promise you, he is going down, and deservedly so.
December 9, 2008 11:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Try googling "military tribunals" and "Guantanamo Bay", for some background.
December 10, 2008 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just last week, on December 4, Blagojevich allegedly told an advisor that he might "get some (money) up front, maybe" from Senate Candidate 5, if he named Senate Candidate 5 to the Senate seat, to insure that Senate Candidate 5 kept a promise about raising money for Blagojevich if he ran for re-election. In a recorded conversation on October 31, Blagojevich claimed he was approached by an associate of Senate Candidate 5 as follows: "We were approached 'pay to play.' That, you know, he'd raise 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him (Senate Candidate 5) a Senator."
What part of that don't you get, heraldsquare?
December 9, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
So someone is promising to help raise money for him if he appoints them. You see Senators helping raise money for other state office candidates al the time. You don't think the Governors of NY and Delaware are having similar conversations right now, about political support?
December 9, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
How about the apparent fact that Blago was going to predicate state funding for the Tribune on whether the company fired its editorial staff? Is that, too, just political horsetrading?
Let me ask you this: what, in your mind, WOULD constitute actual corruption? Where's the line? It seems to me that by your logic, you could just explain away pretty much everything and have no legal standards at all for ethics in government.
December 9, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
If anything, Patrick Fitzgerald is very thorough. I have complete faith in him after his handling of the Plame affair. I'm sure he has the evidence to back up the charges.
December 9, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fitzgerald eh? He's pretty hardcore in terms of corruption but I'm giving him deference for now, the man has earned it.
December 9, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hopefully, the Obama folks who talked to this scoundrel passed this info on to the feds, since it was illegal. It would be disheartening to find out otherwise..
December 9, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's a very good chance that the Obama camp gave Fitz a heads up about this tomfoolery.
I trust Fitz that there was some shady stuff going on here. I mean, it's not like this came out of the blue - Blagojevich has been under the microscope for quite some time....which makes his behavior that much more, well, stupid.
December 9, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
That would be sweet.
December 9, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's a "throwing under the bus" I can believe in!
December 9, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
With governors like Blago and Ryan in charge, how did a squeaky-clean guy like Obama survive in Illinois?
December 9, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Squeaky-clean? B-b-b-but, Rezko! Ayers! the birth certificate!
December 9, 2008 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
You must be a troll, Rezko, Ayres, Birth Certificare. All debunked for the gazillionth time. You have to be a troll.
December 9, 2008 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
A little irony deficient today, are we?
December 10, 2008 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, it is a lot easier to pick out if you envision Daffy Duck saying those things.
December 10, 2008 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are precedents-- Harry Truman -- who was "squeaky clean" came from the Pendergast Machine in Kansas City (He was even known as the "Senator from Pendergast")--
His involvement camen from the fact that he served in WWI with Tom Pendergast's son.
When they approached him to run for a local office, he made it known that everything would be strictly on the level-- to which Pendergast agreed (he even thought it would be helpful to his image to have an honest veteran on his ticket).
So, though connected to Pendergast, everything (with regard to Truman) was aboveboard.
By the time Truman was Vice-President, the law had caught up with Pendergast, and he was an ex-con when he died. All Truman's advisors urged him not to attend the funeral, but Truman, who never doubted his own rectitude, would hear none of it, realizing how much he owed (loyalty was very important to Truman) to the old man.
So politics can make for very strange bedfellows-- sometimes the most corrupt alongside the most honest.
December 9, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting--thanks for the anecdote.
December 9, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, shit. There's the fuel for NoQuarterUSA.net's fire for the next, oh, say, 7 years.
I hate them so much, I want to pee.
December 9, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Read the criminal complaint before making stupid comments. Blago was being wiretapped for years involving his corruption. The U.S. Senate appointment simply came up in connection with other investigations. My reading of the complaint is that if 10% of the allegations are true, the guy should have been put behind bars long before now. It sounds like they were afraid the bat shit Gov. would appoint himself to the Senate.
December 9, 2008 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess now we know why Obama has refused to issue a statement about who should receive either his or Mrs. Clinton's Senate seat. Perhaps he stepped away from that cow pile with the understanding that it was still mushy and warm. Perhaps one might even call it a "hot cow pile", and he didn't didn't want to "hold the bad" so to speak. Or step in it. Or something.
This mixed metaphor should never have been attempted.
December 9, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
But you get an A for effort because you amused us with it :)
December 9, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real question is did Obama/staff know it was pay for play, and if they did know, what did they do about it - did they call the cops, keep it quiet, what?
December 9, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to bring in Rezko and Obama --- then you MUST also bring in the FACT that Rezko ALSO fundraised for George W. Bush -- hundreds of thousands of dollars.
December 9, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see, this is the same Patrick Fitzgerald that gave Karl Rove 5 chances to get his story straight so he could walk free. And this is the same Patrick Fitzgerald that the Scooter Libby jury castigaged harshly for only bringing lesser charges against Libby and not bringing charges against anybody else, especially Dick Cheney. I think we can now see why Fitzgerald wasn't one of those that Gonzales and Rove went after. Fitzgerald has not displayed himself with honor. Not then and not now.
December 9, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Totally disagree. Fitgerald convicted Libby and pushed very hard for hard time and got it. He did not indict anyone else who he could PROVE a case against but he made clear in the trial that the reason Scooter should serve hard time was that his obstruction prevented Fitzgerald from getting the truth about other actors (read Cheney). Had Bush not commuted the sentence, Fitz might have cut a deal to get Libby to flip on others.
Fitz is an equal opportunity prosecutor:
1. Republican George Ryan (22 counts, 6 1/2 years in prison)
2. Billionaire and media mogal Lord Conrad Black (3 counts, 78 months in prison)
3. John Gotti, godfather of the Gambino crime family (13 charges, life imprisonment without possibility of parole)
4. Scooter Libby (4 counts, 2 1/2 years in prison--commuted by Bush)
5. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, aka "the blind sheik," terrorist involved in the WTC bombing (life in prison)
6. First to indict Osama bin Laden
He doesn't play favorites and he isn't afraid of anyone.
December 9, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like this quote from the indictment as well:
December 9, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
What an idiot! He just pissed off the only guy who will able to give him a pardon!
December 9, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Faux News was trying to link Blago and Obama by saying their offices in Chicago were just a few blocks apart. One of the other talking heads says there is a picture of Blago and Obama shaking hands. WTF, they are both public figures in the same state. They are bound to meet with each other at some point.
December 9, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting thing is, this guy would probably get a spot in the Bush administration , no questions asked.
December 9, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny thing. I notice the Guv is charged with conspiracy. Back in the days when I was prosecuting, we would have waited a while to see who turned up trying to buy the Senate seat. Much easier to prove corruption after a bribery offer has been made. That's pretty basic stuff.
So what was the hurry? Well, the front runners are mostly Obama associates and it just wouldn't have been cool to wait long enough to entangle one or more of them in Blagojevich's web. Right?
I'm guessing Fitz's chances of reappointment by The Great One just improved.
December 9, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meanwhile the Bent Rod would be going about his merry way spreading corruption even further throughout the state government of Illinois. And the road and hospital projects he's been trying to extort from would be delayed even longer.
Oh yeah that's a great idea...
December 10, 2008 4:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm reading this stuff, and so far I have seen nothing to substantiate the charges in what Fitzgerald made public. It sounds more like a guy thinking things like, if I become a Senator me and my wife will be set for life because we can lobby and serve on boards.
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April 5, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink