“He certainly is suppressing ... three freakin’ weeks worth, to begin with. Gee, just happenstance that’s when 0 resigned his senate seat to put pressure on Blago, Jarrett pulls out as a candidate, lil’ Dick Durbin plays 0 butt boy as 0’s Blago’s goto.
Who the hell know’s what else is omitted!”
So did Fitz cut the sting short because the Trib was going to go with the story, or was it to prevent Jackson Jr. from following thru with the quid pro quo, getting into serious legal trouble? I didn’t know about the three weeks of phone taps that are suppressed....
MUST READ!
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzhiYmFlMDZiNzkxYmZlMThmMTZjNDJlYzYwM2ZhNjY=
The complaint describes in detail several conversations Blagojevich had concerning the Senate seat, starting on November 3, the day before Barack Obama was elected president, and going on for ten days, until November 13. In conversations secretly recorded by Fitzgerald’s office during that period, Blagojevich clumsily discussed all sorts of options through which he might profit from the Senate appointment — a Cabinet job for himself, a major position with a Democratic-dominated union, a new charity/activist organization that would pay Blagojevich a healthy sum.
After several pages of detailing those machinations, the criminal complaint takes an abrupt turn, describing no wiretaps for a period of three weeks. The complaint says Blagojevich had “numerous conversations” about the Senate seat during that period, but it doesn’t detail any. Then, it skips forward to a conversation that took place on December 4. That suggests the conversations that took place in the three weeks after November 13 broke no new ground, as far as Blagojevich’s corrupt plans were concerned.
And then, on December 4, something changed, and that change was the presence of the person referred to in the complaint as “Candidate Five.” If the complaint is correct, in “Candidate Five,” Blagojevich finally found a prospective senator who might come up with money — $500,000 for Blagojevich’s political organization — in return for the Obama seat. From the criminal complaint:
On December 4, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH spoke to Advisor B and informed Advisor B that he was giving Senate Candidate 5 greater consideration for the Senate seat because, among other reasons, if ROD BLAGOJEVICH ran for re-election Senate Candidate 5 would “raise[] money” for ROD BLAGOJEVICH, although ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he might “get some (money) up front, maybe” from Senate Candidate 5 to insure Senate Candidate 5 kept his promise about raising money for ROD BLAGOJEVICH. (In a recorded conversation on October 31, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH described an earlier approach by an associate of Senate Candidate Five as follows: “We were approached ‘pay to play.’ That, you know, he’d raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him (Senate Candidate 5) a Senator.”)
The complaint goes on to say that on that same day, December 4, Blagojevich told a person referred to as Fundraiser A that he was “elevating” Candidate Five on the Senate list in the hopes that Candidate Five would provide something “tangible up front.” Blagojevich told Fundraiser A to “reach out” to an associate of Candidate Five and say that Blagojevich was under pressure to appoint somebody else and wanted to know if Candidate Five would really come up with the money, especially because, in the words of the complaint, Blagojevich “had a prior bad experience with Candidate Five not keeping his word.” (That, of course, suggests that Candidate Five is probably a well-known political figure in Illinois; no definitive word yet on who that is.) Blagojevich told Fundraiser A to meet personally with the associate of Candidate Five and, in the words of the complaint, “communicate the ‘urgency’ of the situation.”
The dealing seemed very close to a climax — and an explosive political scandal. And then, on the morning of December 5, the Chicago Tribune ran a story on its front page reporting that law enforcement had secretly recorded Blagojevich’s conversations as part of a criminal investigation. Blagojevich immediately instructed Fundraiser A to “undo” the plan to meet personally with the associate of Candidate Five. Blagojevich instead turned his energy to preparing his legal defense.
The deal was off, blown, apparently, by the Tribune’s report. For anyone who has watched the case, the astonishing thing is that Blagojevich, prior to December 5, could possibly have assumed that he wasn’t under surveillance. But he apparently did, making for some of the juiciest political wiretaps in years. And he appeared to be moving toward actually making a corrupt deal to sell Obama’s Senate seat when he finally, belatedly, figured things out. And that seems to be the best explanation for why prosecutor Fitzgerald went public on December 9, instead of letting the case continue for a while longer.