Free Republic

Patrick Fitzgerald seems to indicate that Obama’s team approached Blaogjevich! I noticed this as I was reading the transcript of Fitzgerald's comments at the press conference. Below is a quote from that event that I've not heard mentioned anywhere. After Fitzgerald details the events around the Valerie Jarrett portion of the pay-for-play scheming with the Obama people, he then goes on to say this about Jesse Jackson Jr. approaching Blagojevich with another deal: —- “What I should also talk about is that, in another event, SOMEBODY ELSE APPROACHED THE GOVERNOR [emphasis mine]. And the governor’s understanding of this approach was...

Today, an eight-year speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Jim Black, will plead guilty to federal corruption charges and receive a prison sentence. It’s the latest in a series of guilty pleas related to a criminal conspiracy of lobbyists and public officials involving pay-for-play bribery deals, violations of lobbying and campaign-finance laws, regulation of the video poker industry, passage of a state-run lottery, and a general seediness in North Carolina state government. And other state lawmakers may yet be caught in the dragnet. Black, a Democrat and optometrist, had used his fundraising prowess and bare-knuckle tactics to maintain...

March 18, 2003 U.S. Seeks $289 Billion in Cigarette Makers' ProfitsBy ERIC LICHTBLAU ASHINGTON, March 17 — The Justice Department is demanding that the nation's biggest cigarette makers be ordered to forfeit $289 billion in profits derived from a half-century of "fraudulent" and dangerous marketing practices. Citing new evidence, the Justice Department asserts in more than 1,400 pages of court documents that the major cigarette companies are running what amounts to a criminal enterprise by manipulating nicotine levels, lying to their customers about the dangers of tobacco and directing their multibillion-dollar advertising campaigns at children. Those practices continue even today,...