You've heard all of the tapes? Also, why didn't Emanuel/Obama go straight to the feds if Blago was asking them for conditions to be put on the seat?
Hasn't the prosecutor? If there were any indication that Obama/Rahm were willing to provide compensation, would he have gone out of his way to say that there was none? Also, Blagojevich specifically said that Obama wasn't willing to give him anything but appreciation, so "fuck him." There's nothing reported that Blagojevich had actually demanded anything of Obama or Rahm. Blagojevich is stupid, but even he probably realizes that you don't try to blackmail, or demand illegal compensation, from the incoming President. From what has been reported, my take is that Rahm, or some functionary connected to Rahm, communicated Obama's desire that Jarrett receive the seat, but Blagojevich, knowing he wouldn't get anything out of Obama, didn't want to go that route.
"What has been reported" is what has come from the Obama camp, but as Denny Crane posted, there is now some new information. I'm not saying anything criminal happened, but Obama's initial claims last week don't really jibe with the new information. What did the President-elect know, and when did he know it?
Did you miss the part about Holder's firm not actually being hired after all, and thus not receiving any of the $300k? I'm confident you didn't intentionally ignore it. barfo
You do realize this is the same prosecutor (Fitz!) who didn't go after Richard Armitage for what laypeople perceived as outing an undercover CIA agent, right? Given past history, he might not go after any Obama people no matter what they did.
This whole thing does smack of the Clinton administration scandals. First it was a couple of FBI files they had, then it was a couple dozen, then it was hundreds, and when the full truth came out, it was thousands or tens of thousands. The truth did come out but not by their doing. So much for transparency. Where is Rahm?
Not Obama, Rahm. Seems that the guy who actually does the crime gets no attention and the guys at the periphery get the shaft with Fitz.
So Blago is at the periphery and Rahm is the central character here? If that's the case, then Fitz needs to go to jail himself. barfo
Maybe. But it sounds like he didn't get bribes, he only asked for them. Which makes him the criminal. barfo
It's very tough to explain away how a guy asking everyone for bribes talked to Obama's pick for Chief of Staff 21 times and Rahm couldn't figure out what was going on or blow the whistle. It's obvious to me that the new administration is hiding Rahm and hoping they can stall long enough to see this whole thing go away, hoping that people will simply forget it happened. For anyone who expects more transparency from the new administration, this has to be a major disappointment, or they're simply sycophants.
So let me get this straight: Rahm Emmanuel, a former congressman from Illinois, Barack Obama, a former senator from Illinois, and Rod Blagoiovich, the (soon to be) former governor of Illinois, all know each other. Not all that shocking. Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama's chief of staff, talked with the governor of Illinois 21 times about who the soon-to-be President would prefer as his replacement. I personally think it would be shocking of Obama DIDN'T care who was replacing him. So not all that shocking. This governor of Illinois turns out to have tried to sell the seat to the highest bidder. This, I grant you, is pretty shocking, and highly illegal. Clearly though, this, by itself, only implicates Blagoiovich. Now, Emmanuel and Blagoiovich clearly talked about who Obama preferred as the next Senator from Illinois. The FBI has a long case file detailing who was offered an opportunity to be bribed, who actually placed a bribe, etc. From these VERY detailed reports, it can clearly be discerned that Obama preferred Valerie Jarret, and that he and his team weren't willing to give anything to Blagoiovich. http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/blago_indictment_senate_candid.php So what you're basically saying is that, over the course of 21 phone calls, Rahm Emmanuel did not in fact ever offer a bribe of any sort (Blago, in colorful language, says this outright), but that somewhere in those calls, the context of the conversation must have made it very clear to him that Blago was looking for a bribe. This is certainly not clear, but lets run with it. With this in mind, you're alleging that it's some political apocalypse for Rahm if he didn't immediately blow the whistle on this. Well, there's no moral or political imperative to blow the whistle on government conspiracies. Whistleblowing is generally considered to be extremely politically risky, can generally make you enemies for life for anyone tangentially related to the person you blew the whistle on, etc. Blowing the whistle on ANYTHING is generally considered a very brave act. It's not an easy thing by any stretch of the imagination, especially for someone carrying the reputation of the next POTUS on this back. "Not being a whistleblower" is, to put it quite simply, not a damning accusation of anyone. And, on top of that, if you've ever seen The Wire, you know it's VERY easy to say things without saying them. What's more likely than not is that Blago (possibly repeatedly) left the door open for Rahm to offer a bribe. That is definitely not a crime - there's no way to prove that he would have TAKEN the bribe if it had been offered at all. All Rahm can really do is not offer a bribe which, as the documents pretty clearly show, he didn't do. Now, if that unlikely scenario of Blago demanding an outright bribe, which Rahm promptly refused, is what you're implying might have happened, and if you're implying that Rahm's great crime is not blowing the whistle, then, well, you've got a pretty weak case. In my opinion.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...ons-arise.html "Obviously like the rest of the people of Illinois I am saddened and sobered by the news that came out of the US attorney's office today," said President-elect Obama this afternoon in Chicago, speaking of the criminal complaint against Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich for corruption. "But as this is a ongoing investigation involving the governor I don't think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the issue at this time." Asked what contact he'd had with the governor's office about his replacement in the Senate, President-elect Obama today said "I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening." But on November 23, 2008, his senior adviser David Axelrod appeared on Fox News Chicago and said something quite different. While insisting that the President-elect had not expressed a favorite to replace him, and his inclination was to avoid being a "kingmaker," Axelrod said, "I know he's talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them." And, it should be pointed out, Mr. Obama has a relationship with Mr. Blagojevich, having not only endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006, but having served as a top adviser to the Illinois governor in his first 2002 run for the state house. In the Democratic gubernatorial primary that year, then-state sen. Obama endorsed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. But after Blagojevich won, Obama came around enthusiastically. At the same time, meanwhile, Axelrod had such serious concerns about whether Blagojevich was ready for governing he refused to work for his one-time client. According to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., Mr. Obama's incoming White House chief of staff, Emanuel, then-state senator Obama, a third Blagojevich aide, and Blagojevich's campaign co-chair, David Wilhelm, were the top strategists of Blagojevich's 2002 gubernatorial victory. Emanuel told the New Yorker earlier this year 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." Wilhelm said that Emanuel had overstated Obama's role. "There was an advisory council that was inclusive of Rahm and Barack but not limited to them," Wilhelm said, and he disputed the notion that Obama was "an architect or one of the principal strategists." (An Obama Transition Team aide emails to note that Emanuel later changed his recollection of this story to Rich Miller's "CAPITOL FAX," saying, "David [Wilhelm] and I have worked together on campaigns for decades. Like always, he's right and I'm wrong.") Either way, others now around Obama were less enthusiastic about Blagojevich at the time, namely David Axelrod, Obama's senior campaign adviser who will soon be a senior adviser at the White House. Axelrod had worked for Blagojevich in his past races for the House, but he declined to work on his gubernatorial run. "He had been my client and I had a very good relationship with him, but I didn't sign on to the governor's race," Axelrod told the New Yorker. "Obviously he won, but I had concerns about it...I was concerned about whether he was ready for that. Not so much for the race but for governing. I was concerned about some of the folks -- I was concerned about how the race was being approached." On the Chicago TV show "Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz" on June 27, 2002, state Sen. Obama said, "Right now, my main focus is to make sure that we elect Rod Blagojevich as Governor, we..." "You working hard for Rod?" interrupted Berkowitz. "You betcha," said Obama. "Hot Rod?" asked the host. "That's exactly right," Obama said. In 2004, then-Gov. Blagojevich enthusiastically endorsed Obama for the Senate seat after he won the nomination, and Obama endorsed Blagojevich for his 2006 re-election race in early 2005. In the Summer of 2006, then-U.S. Sen. Obama backed Blagojevich even though there were serious questions at the time about Blago's hiring practices. At the time, numerous state agencies had had records subpoenaed, with U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald telling authorities he was looking into "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" with a "number of credible witnesses." In an interview with the Chicago Daily Herald in July 2006, then-Sen. Obama said, "I have not followed closely enough what's been taking place in these investigations to comment on them. Obviously I'm concerned about reports that hiring practices at the state weren't, at times, following appropriate procedures. How high up that went, the degree at which the governor was involved, is not something I'm going to speculate on. "If I received information that made me believe that any Democrat had not been acting in the public interest, I'd be concerned," Obama said. That said, Mr. Obama said, "If the governor asks me to work on his behalf, I'll be happy to do it." Apparently the governor did. At the Illinois State Fair in August 2006, Obama spoke on Blagojevich's behalf. "We've got a governor in Rod Blagojevich who has delivered consistently on behalf of the people of Illinois," Obama told the crowd. In January 2007, Blagojevich's office reserved the Old State Capitol for Mr. Obama's presidential announcement at Obama's request. Blagojevich spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch told reporters that "Representatives for Sen. Obama contacted the governor's office regarding use of the Old State Capitol. We contacted the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and reserved the Old State Capitol for the Senator on February 10th." The Old State Capitol is where President Abraham Lincoln delivered his "House Divided" speech in 1858. Fitzgerald today said that the charges the government was making about Blagojevich "would make Lincoln turn over in his grave."
I think it does, in certain circumstances, and this is one of those circumstances. As the opinion poll that Minstrel posted in the other thread shows, the public has a quite high regard for Obama right now, and so they are likely to presume him innocent unless there is evidence to the contrary. And there is no evidence to the contrary. barfo
