Jesse Jackson Jr. Press Conference

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Short version: Jackson uses this as a campaign commercial, he makes a narrow denial about the conversations of his supporters with Blago, makes a categorical statement saying he (personally) hadn’t met with Blago for four years, and he refuses to take questions. 

[Starts by expressing outrage at the pay to play schemes.]

The people of IL deserve better. 

The governor should resign and forfeit his authority to make the appointment. Anyone would be too tainted.

Meanwhile the governor’s fate is in the hand of the justice system.

I want to address rumors about me. I reject and denounce pay to play politics. I did not initiate or authorize anyone at any time to promise anything to Blagojevich on my behalf. I never sent an emissary to make a deal. I thought, mistakenly, that the process was fair. 

I have more seniority than all those–except Luis Gutierrez–considered for the position.

I thought the governor was considering me based on my 13 years of hard work on the part of IL.

I did not know that the process had been corrupted. I did not know that qualifications meant nothing to the governor. I wanted to be considered for the appointment because I believe in public service. That’s what I shared with Blago on Monday, when I had the opportunity to meet with him for the first time in four years.  The media saw me enter his office, the media saw me exit his office. Despite what he may have expected, that’s all I had to offer.

[Thanks all those who have endorsed him for the position.]

Know this. I spoke to the US Attorney’s office on Tuesday. I am not a target of this investigation and I am not accused of any misconduct. In the days ahead, law enforcement officers want to meet to discuss what I know about this process. I look forward to cooperating completely. I retain the advice of James Montgomery Sr. 

On his advice, I will not be taking any questions.

I do want to add one point before I leave. This morning I got text messages from my little sister, who said she was proud of what I’ve done. This morning she told me, Jesse Jr, I’m proud of you.

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63 replies
  2. emptywheel says:

    ayep

    Thoroughly unconvincing. I’m not sure what purpose taht presser served, except that JJJ figured he would be able to give a free 3 minute campaign ad.

    • NorskeFlamethrower says:

      Citizen emptywheel:

      Why should we be interested in any speculation or uncharged allegations of wrongdoing in this entire horrible cartoon and why does Jackson’s statement and denial of involvement deserve any further comment or snark? Come on Marcy don’t take the bait…the Democrats are loadin’ up a Howitzer and givin’ it to the fascists ta shoot at America’s auto unions and you are pushin’ a corporately orchestrated smear of a progressive congress person??!! Come on, you’re better’n that!

  3. LabDancer says:

    Perhaps if we’d known in advance of how proud his little sister is of him, this no-press presser would have been unnecessary.

  4. LabDancer says:

    Here’s the impression I’m getting of all this: there’s not a professional politician in Illinois who has not know for quite some time of precisely how much of Blago’s brain is comprised of rocks – – but it’s been awkward for Democrats in particular to raise it.

    However now, with Fitzgerald’s press conference and the 76 pages of partial MRI pictures, the new Dem dilemma is in explaining why they’ve never raised it.

    JJJ seems to have struck on strategy for dealing with this new Dem dilemma: ‘I hadn’t spoken with him in FOUR YEARS. It now appears that at some time in the intervening period the Governor had a partial lobotomy. That I was unaware of this critical fact should be understandable, given all the time I’ve spent in Washington over the past decade and a half, and all the time I’ve spent on the campaign trail over the last year talking up the Obama candidacy and getting my own self re-elected.

    I was out of the Loop!’

    • Leen says:

      I also have high regard for Jessie Sr. The media and powers that be really like trying to tag Jessie Sr. with “always looking for the limelight” which is complete horseshit.

      Jessie has come to Appalachia for years in support of higher wages, equity in education etc. Just after the 2000 election fiasco I made it over to one of the Supreme Court hearings in D.C. I made it to D.C. at 3 a.m and thought I would be one of the first in line all ready at least a hundred folks there. Got my place in line and then traded time with another person saving our spot in line so that we could take turns roaming. Around 7a.m Jessie showed up in front of the Supreme Court (by that time there may have been several thousand people out front) and got out of a black SUV and with a few body guard types started roaming around a bit. The Republican crowd surrounded him and I followed, listened and watched. Heard comments that I was shocked by the N word was thrown out and I started to lose it. Jessie just kept his cool kept his eyes moving above the crowd (he is darn tall) and kept moving.

      Made it into the Supreme Court Hearing for close to an hour that is another story.

      Jessie has seen and heard it all..he is dedicated to social justice for all.

  8. NorskeFlamethrower says:

    Citizen Emptywheel and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

    Everyone in the fact-based community and indeed everyone living in and currently threatened by the reality of our world right now needs to stop givin’ oxygen to this dead horse. Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership in the Senate are in the process of allowin’ the fascists to kill off the auto unions and, in the process, usher in a depression that will make the 1930’s look like the Roaring 20’s while we are chasin’ smears and inuendos and pumpin’ up the advertisin’ numbers for the sorporate media. ENOUGH ALREADY!!

    • plunger says:

      Bankster, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild was just interviewed on CNBS:

      “The problem with your banking system is it’s not run by the government.”

      “Obviously the UK is a smaller colony than your own.”

      To be clear, he just stated his view that the US is in fact a colony of the Crown, which it most certainly is. And a few days ago – this top globalist attempted to speak for the serfs:

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7754768.stm

      A Rothschild preaching about the revival of “an honest days work.”

      Now that’s rich!

  9. cwarddc says:

    I’m not saying he’s lying, but I’ve noticed when people say they didn’t do something or didn’t know something, someone says that that’s not enough. What else are they supposed to say? If I didn’t do something and say I didn’t do it, what else is there left to say?

    • emptywheel says:

      Thing is, he DIDN’T say, I didn’t do this. He said:

      Before yesterday, I hadn’t spoken with Blago for four years
      I didn’t authorize anyone to make promises on my behalf
      I didn’t send an emissary to make a deal

      After which, the first question would have been, “was anyone in discussions with the governor about the position”? (That is, open-ended discussions, not striking a deal?)

      The next question would be, “what did you and he discuss yesterday, in addition to your qualifications?” “Did he ask for money?” “What does it matter that the media saw you go in and out of Blago’s office?”

      You see, aside from the way that JJJ used this presser to address tangential issues and not just the ones everyone wanted to answer, he wasn’t in a position (per the advice of his lawyer) to really do what needed to be done–explain what went on between any emissaries and between him and Blago.

      • juslin says:

        and to me – just who these “emissaries are and did they have authority to speak for you??? its curiouser and curiouser

  11. Raven says:

    Little history for you non-Illini:

    Outrage? Hardly. An excerpt from The Southern Illinoisan:

    “We just assume politics is corrupt and a little bit of corruption is the cost of doing business,” said Kent Redfield, a political scientist at the University of Illinois at Springfield. That was certainly the attitude toward former Secretary of State Paul Powell, owner of the mysterious cash-stuffed shoeboxes.

    “Paul did a lot of good things for southern Illinois, including helping to build the university I work at,” said Mike Lawrence, the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

    So when those shoeboxes were found in Powell’s home when he died in 1970, it raised some eyebrows but not much ire. “People were surprised about the amount of money,” Lawrence said of the cache that neither Powell nor anyone else ever explained. “But there was sort of a sense if he gave us our share, what’s wrong with him getting his share.

  12. JohnLopresti says:

    OT’s: Around New Year 2010 there could be a review on television. Among the transitions that retrospective might proffer might be an angled camera image of then recently appointed usAGJAshcroft. The year in review will continue the theme to arrive at Holder’s then first nearly full year in office as of January 2010, though with mention of an embarrassing moment his predecessor MMukasey endured without that final BushAG’s having diverged from scripted remarks to address a heckler, this outspoken individual addressing comments at Mukasey from the bench in the last week of November 2008. Then the review of the first year of the presidency cues on tape.

      • Hugh says:

        I thought they all were deadwood. They have live wood?

        Some wood is deader than others. The really stale and moribund personalities that we have all come to recognize the way we do bad breath in the morning will still be there.

  16. KayInMaine says:

    I’m not ready to lambaste Jesse Jackson Jr. I watched his presser today and didn’t come away feeling like he was lying.

    We’ll just have to wait and see what the FBI think. If they have Jesse’s voice on tape talking to Blago about the very things he’s denying today….oh boy. I’ll then lambaste him just like I did this summer when Jackson Sr. threatened to cut Barack’s nuts off!

  17. juste says:

    nothing new for me to disagree with the groupthink here, but I actually found Jackson sincere and convincing. Sounded like righteous anger to me.

    I also agree with Norske. This is about ONE dumb as dirt sleazeball, and maybe a few cronies. The fucking emmessemm are falling all over themselves to stretch it out long and far enough to poison Obama with it. I thought you people were like, above all that.

  18. LabDancer says:

    Sorry to resort to the mundane:

    Someone posting here on a previous thread, and others elsewhere, have raised the matter of DISTINCTION between a criminal COMPLAINT and a criminal INDICTMENT.

    That got me back to thinking about THIS complaint, and on reviewing it, these things at least appear noteworthy:

    [1] Only the first two pages of the PDF comprise the COMPLAINT. Moreover, the remaining 76 pages of AFFIDAVIT are not presented as particulars or details relating to the COMPLAINT

    [although certainly the first 54 pages of it provide details that appear to relate to the complaint, and the last few paragraphs appear to relate to it, as ARGUABLY …maybe, I suppose, stretching the concept of “relevant” … does the part of the AFFIDAVIT describing things said and done in relation to the US Senate seat sale].

    [2] Note that right at the end the phrase “reason to believe” appears, and only relation to the actions that appear in the two-page COMPLAINT reproduced at the beginning of the PDF.

    “Reason to believe” is of course 4th amendment type talk, and the basis for a number of state tools, including search warrants and arrests – – both of which happened yesterday.

    That suggests to me that Fitzgerald has intentionally set up the PDF to let loose the effects of pressure from the media and the blogoshpere. Now, that much might seem obvious, and of course Ms ew as per usual has succeeded in showing us through the application of her special focal talents in an earlier thread today some of the syntactical skills by which he has sought to bring those effects to bear.

    But note again: Neither COUNT in the COMPLAINT, and not even the recitation of the 4th Amendment test in the AFFIDAVIT, are presented in terms of what Blago was exploring doing with his found gold actually being a crime.

    There’s a lot to this, so I’m going to leave it at this for now.

    • KayInMaine says:

      It does make you wonder if Fitzgerald was in on the “December surprise”, you know, instead of the “October surprise” which the Bush Regime knew Americans were waiting for to drop? Maybe they’re figuring that the pressure will be so great against Obama to step down as the president-elect, even though, they know he’s not connected to any of this, so this is their way of setting it up for George to remain in office? *shudder*

    • emptywheel says:

      LabDancer

      Let me see if I understand. You’re saying that only the first two pages were necessary, but the 76 pages were gravy, not legally necessary for yesterday’s business (except insofar as if you’re going to arrest a sitting governor, you better make you CAN make a case, even if you don’t have to make it yet).

      If that’s what you’re saying, I’d agree, and suggest he’s trying to do two things: get people to come forward, and provide a roadmap to impeachment.

      • LabDancer says:

        You understand me exactly.

        I’ll go a little further:

        The impression left by the Affidavit’s quoting Blago is that Team Blago is talking about having received more than an overture, indeed a proffer from Team Senate Candidate #5…or Team JJJ.

        [More directly than I’d suggested earlier, to some degree in fun, as to JJJ meaning to say today he was ‘out of the Loop’, I think his comment at the non-press presser that he hadn’t spoken with Blago for 4 years was aimed at trying to respond to the suggestion that JJJ himself had any such personal contact.]

        But depending on the actual quote IN CONTEXT and WITH FULL INFLECTION, it’s possible to see how Blago’s words may not mean such a proffer was made, directly by or indirectly on behalf of JJJ, but rather Blago might have been voicing the projections of his over-heated, under-muscled brain.

        As in: ‘Among every other obvious possible candidate, the one I would figure most likely to be drooling over this would be JJJ – so I figure he’s gonna make his move. And when he does, what it really means is: I may sound cool and all, but really, I’m drooling. But I’m so smart, and he’s so dumb not to realize it, he’ll figure me to fall for that cool, doin’-in-for-the-people act, and all the time I’ll KNOW he’s really salivating to beat all’.

        It’s like those conversations in Godfather 1: ‘When Sallotso phones, he’ll ask for a meet; but what he’s really after’…; and ‘Just you wait: Tataglia’s gonna ask for a meet, and you gotta realize he’s just acting as the go between’: self-centered, half-witted, disconnected, megalomania mixed with the paranoia that comes of knowing you’ve been under threat of a violent hit [in Blago’s case, under threat of arrest and search warrant in investigations going back months, maybe years].

        But that doesn’t mean the investigation is about a Senate seat sale – and indeed you yourself have observed that the Affidavit shows the Senate seat sale scam never even occurred to Blago’s fevered brain until quite a while into an ongoing investigation – one that there’s also no necessity to accept was focused on even the subject matter of the Complaint, ie the Cubs shakedown.

        Moreover, having dealt with conspiracy charges on both sides of the table, I can tell you that I’m really having trouble determining from the Affidavit whether Blago ever got beyond the ‘musing out loud with henchmen’ stage and onto the first important corroboration of the existence of a criminal conspiracy: an act to further the aim of the conspiracy [known to the pros as an “act in furtherance”, as in Where the hell is the…?]

        Also, I noted in JJJ’s non-press presser that he referred to having started to talk to the Feds the DAY BEFORE. Now, that isn’t nearly as definitive as saying ‘As soon as I left the Gov’s mansion and the press scrum and got onto my cell phone, I found out from my people Fitz was urgently requesting the pleasure of my company’ – but neither is it so far from the same thing in effect that it might not be the case.

        It’s not unheard of for investigations to jump the shark in circumstances a hell of a lot less pressurized than those like these that involve a president elect, so I won’t exclude the possibility that Fitz may have decided to act in terms of timing on a hunch – his own or a collective one – or a possibly flawed surmise, even out of an abundance of caution [nor am I inclined to criticize this particular ejaculation merely for its being premature, given what all is out there basking in sunshine] – and Fitz’ career suggests he’s hard to shock –

        all I’m saying is that

        [1] it’s not at all clear that Fitz had all the ingredients to put this particular Senate seat sale cake up for sale when he decided to put it on display, and

        [2] without more, it’s not at all clear that a provable crime was committed in relation to the Senate seat sale.

        ‘Hey – we could al’as, you know, rob a bank er sumthin”
        ‘You moron; whaddyou know about robbin’ no banks’
        ‘Hey, I kin read – I read aboudit inna Elmore Leonard book one time’
        ‘Okay perfessor knowitall, then tell us: how woodchew go ’bout this bank deal then’
        ‘Well, foist you gotta find a bank wit’ some money in it’
        ‘Hol’ it, hol it right there: whereat dyou figger such a bank might be for instance’

        It’s not as if Team Blago’s internal consultations don’t bring to mind the kind of bent nose losers Damon Runyan wrote of.

        • emptywheel says:

          Actually, the first charge in the complaint, as explained in the affy (how’s that, eh?!?!?) pertains to all three things: the pay for play on govt stuff, the Trib, and the senate seat.

          And while I don’t think he SHOWS us what he’s got on the Senate seat, I have a feeling there’s a reason why he focused on the Obama stuff and the SEIU stuff, and that he has more confidence that he can pull that together than the JJJ stuff (which is why the JJJ stuff is tacked on there at the end).

  20. JohnLopresti says:

    Glad to see the note @52; Fitzgerald used to do a similar carefully orchestrated documentation, yet, not outright transposition, clerical error, early in the Libby production of documents to the public, but shaped up nicely later when the world had commenced to pay attention to the partial news minstrations of the erstwhile exOVP employee’s $USD multimillion defense team, who reserved the right to file skewed pdf’s which only costly OCR devices would render searchable, although there are several hereabouts with photographic, and perhaps photogenic, memories. One facet of the events this week relates to the USA doing his job, sir, maam; another relates to exercising the oiled machine’s dirty get even political arm, especially in Chicago, but Biden and Clinton both have governors set to execute respective replacement strategies, and there was news this week of a Louisiana elected person perhaps being replaced?; we discussed a smidgeon of that with respect to Napolitano’s nomination though her post would fill from Republican channels.

  21. freepatriot says:

    so who wants to be the Senator from blagojevich now ???

    blago was fucked the minute this was announced

    like the Senate would accept an appointee with blago’s stink on him

  22. prostratedragon says:

    Congratulations EW on having found exactly the right strategy for this part of our unwinding epic.

  23. Leen says:

    What’s with Jessie Jr.’s sister comment?

    I really do not know much about Jessie Jr. but there is no doubt that the Senate lacks people of color.

  24. Leen says:

    Just listened to the Jessie Jr. Press conference. I thought he sounded clear, confident and honest. Graceful man. Only time will tell

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