OK, here’s where it happened - right in the first week after the election. CNN’s article (below) reports that “over the weekend” (which would have been weekend of Nov. 8) CNN (and also a Chicago TV station) had been informed by “Democratic sources” that Valerie Jarrett was Obama’s “choice” to fill “his” US Senate seat. Then by Mon. Nov. 10 an unnamed “senior advisor” to Obama is saying she’s headed for the WH.
Now why that flip-flop after they’d been putting the word out that Obama wanted Jarrett to fill “his” Senate seat??
Maybe, just maybe, the initial contacts were made and Blago made it clear it would be a bidding process?
I’m not with the folks who assume that Obama is implicated in what Blago was doing — I do find it plausible that Obama’s team refused to get into the bidding war, as is indicated in the wiretap transcripts. [of course that could have been just for show, if Obama’s team had been tipped off about the wiretaps]
But the FACTs as related by CNN are that first CNN was tipped off that Valerie Jarrett was Obama’s pick, and then a couple of days later CNN was told that VJ would be gonig to the White House staff instead.
November 10, 2008
Sources: Jarrett headed to White House, not Senate
Posted: 07:56 PM ET
From CNN Political Director Sam Feist
Valerie Jarrett is one of Barack Obama’s closest advisers.
(CNN) — Two Democratic sources close to President-elect Barack Obama tell CNN that top adviser Valerie Jarrett will not be appointed to replace him in the U.S. Senate.
“While he (Obama) thinks she would be a good senator, he wants her in the White House,” one top Obama advisor told CNN Monday.
Over the weekend, Democratic sources had told CNN as well as Chicago television station WLS-TV that Jarrett was Obama’s choice to fill his Senate seat.
Jarrett, a Chicago attorney and one of Obama’s closest advisers, is a leader of the president-elect’s transition team.
Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, praised her as a “valuable ally.”
“People should know that Valerie Jarrett is — and people do know — she is a very dear friend of the president-elect and a valuable ally of his, not only prior to running for president, in his Senate life, and just personally for Michelle and Barack,” Emanuel said on ABC’s This Week.
Several other Illinois Democrats have expressed interest in the seat, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich will make the final decision on Obama’s successor.
Filed under: Barack Obama • Valerie Jarrett
I’m with you on thinking Obama and staff may have avoided Blago entirely. They knew he was already under investigation, and probably guessed (at the least) that wiretaps and other means of eavesdropping and surveillance were in place.
Another point is that Blago’s intention was to plant stories that “leaked” false information about the potential candidates, so could Blago’s staff have planted information stating meetings took place that really never did? (With Obama)
Jarrett may have went along with the senator appointment until she got confirmation of a better apointment with the WH.
Too much speculation! Not enough answers!
Bottom line: Many others are involved. We deserve answers and names.