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Gold Bars Luskin: Turdblossom Is Wearing Nothing But a Fig Leaf

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(Graphic by twolf)

There’s a few things really funny (as in smells funny, not funny ha ha) about Rove and Luskin’s identical attacks on Obama’s decision to comply with Fitz’s request that he not reveal the contacts between his transition team and Blago until next Monday.

Here’s Rove:

Rove: And it’s not gonna be a couple of days, last Thursday he said they’d, quote, do it in a few days, now we’re being told it’ll be next week. 

Colmes: That’s because of the prosecutor, Karl, the prosecutor has asked Obama to wait a week.

Rove: Again, first of all, the prosecutor can ask; the President-elect ought to decide what is in his best interest, and saying clearly and candidly to the American people like he should have said ten days ago, "Of course we’re going to be talking to him about who my replacement should be, but if any suggestion was made of a quid pro quo, my people would have said no right from the get-go." I just don’t buy this that the Obama transition operation is resisting giving out this information only because they’re being held back by the prosecutor’s office.

And here’s Luskin.

Robert Luskin, a Washington white-collar defense lawyer who knows Mr. Fitzgerald well, said he doesn’t doubt the prosecutor would have asked that Obama officials keep quiet until his investigation is further along. That is to prevent witnesses from tailoring their stories to what they learn others are saying. But, he said, Mr. Obama and his aides don’t have to comply. They are using the prosecutor as a "fig leaf" to avoid answering questions just now, Mr. Luskin said. They could just as easily have decided that assuring the public about their actions is more important than acceding to the prosecutor’s request.

The Investigations that Weren’t

One really minor gripe is this. The Obama team has–apparently–done an investigation and turned the results over to Fitz. Not a radical thought, I know. But consider:

Remember the Abramoff scandal–the one that should have shown Abramoff sending emails via Susan Ralston’s secret email to Karl Rove? The White House claimed to do an investigation into Abramoff’s ties to the White House. Only, they somehow missed the large number of visits (not to mention close contacts) Abramoff had with Rove and his buddies.  

And how about the Plame outing? Read more →

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Rahm’s 21 Conversations with Blagojevich and Friends?

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I’ve been boring you all by repeatedly pointing to this passage in the complaint against Blago:

This affidavit does not include all calls dealing with the corrupt efforts of ROD BLAGOJEVICH, JOHN HARRIS, and others to misuse the power of ROD BLAGOJEVICH to appoint a United States Senator for the personal gain of ROD BLAGOJEVICH and his family, nor does this affidavit set forth other calls where ROD BLAGOJEVICH and others discussed a possible appointment to the Senate seat based on considerations other than financial gain for ROD BLAGOJEVICH and his family, discussions which took place with greater frequency after efforts to arrange for a private job for ROD BLAGOJEVICH in exchange for appointing a particular candidate to the open Senate seat did not meet with success. [my emphasis]

I have even suggested that, given the narrative Fitz constructs, it is quite likely that those discussions–which took place with greater frequency after Obama told Blago they’d only give "appreciation" and not a high paying job–took place between Rahm Emanuel and Blago’s folks.

Well, who knows who is using Michael Sneed as a mouthpiece this time … but my speculation that Rahm was involved in those "greater frequency" calls seems to be on the right track.

Sneed hears rumbles President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is reportedly on 21 different taped conversations by the feds — dealing with his boss’ vacant Senate seat! 

A lot of chit-chat?

Hot air?

Or trouble?

Given the seemingly Rahm-generated leaks so far, it seems we can count on two conversations around November 1 (delivering the list of acceptable candidates, thereby setting Blago off to write a list of things to demand in return), several conversations around November 10 (telling Blago that the only thing he’d get would be appreciation), and then a conversation after Blago planned to start trading around Rahm’s House seat on November 13. 

That is, we can account for about 7 conversations between the complaint and the seeming pre-emptive leaking out of Rahm’s camp. 

Which would seem to leave phone calls with "greater frequency" in the days after November 13, when Blago kept scrambling for something of value from the President-elect. But note, if I’m right that these conversations are about something of non-monetary value, then they may get even more interesting as we go forward.

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Fitz to Obama: Twas a Week before Fitzmas

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I’ve been saying that the wingnut calls for Obama to release all the gory details of what Rahm said to Blago (it went something like: fuck fuck fuck shit asshole fuck) probably didn’t account for Fitz’ well-known desire that witnesses in his investigations remain silent until he can complete the investigation.

Now, Obama has made it clear that Fitz has asked for a delay.

"At the direction of the President-elect, a review of Transition staff contacts with Governor Blagojevich and his office has been conducted and completed and is ready for release.  That review affirmed the public statements of the President-elect that he had no contact with the governor or his staff, and that the President-elect’s staff was not involved in inappropriate discussions with the governor or his staff over the selection of his successor as US Senator.

"Also at the President-elect’s direction, Gregory Craig, counsel to the Transition, has kept the US Attorney’s office informed of this fact-gathering process in order to ensure our full cooperation with the investigation.

"In the course of those discussions, the US Attorney’s office requested the public release of the Transition review be deferred until the week of December 22, in order not to impede their investigation of the governor.  The Transition has agreed to this revised timetable for release," said Obama Transition Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. [my emphasis]

If nothing else, that gives us a good idea of how much longer Fitz thinks he might need before he gets an actual indictment. 

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Is Rahm Still Running for Speaker of the House?

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(Alex Wong/Getty Images photo)

Or is Blago delirious about that too?

I’m finally getting around to reading the collected works of Michael Sneed, the woman scribe calls "this scandal’s Judy." Sneed is the columnist whom Blago was using to launder his leaks about the Senate selection process, feeding her false information about his leading candidates, with the intention of pressuring Obama and others to respond accordingly. (Incidentally, TheraP pointed to this diary which claimed Sneed’s more embarrassing columns were getting removed from the Sun-Times archive, but they’re actually still there; it’s just that they go behind the pay firewall after one month.)

Given that we know Blago was using Sneed in that way, I’m particularly interested in her column from November 14 (which also just went behind the firewall).  In it, she has what may well be another regurgitated Blago rant.

IS IT EMIL? Sneed hears Gov. Blago, who will choose Obama’s replacement in the U.S. Senate, privately feels there may be only one choice that makes sense: His buddy, outgoing Senate President Emil Jones. – To wit: Jones is this/close to Blago, who may pay his pal back for being such a staunch ally. Jones would also be a strong ally in the Senate for his political godson — Obama.

– Hmmm: Isn’t it true Gov. Blago, who truly believes a federal indictment is not in his future, is hoping Jones would be a placeholder until 2010 — when Gov. Rod could opt for a Senate seat or another run at the governorship? Is someone smoking posies?

Fitz’s chronology ends on November 13–which would presumably be the day Blago would have leaked this to Sneed for her November 14 column; the complaint doesn’t confirm that the leak came from Blago. Yet the attribution seems to clearly point to Blago, and given the sheer number of leaks she was getting from him, it seems likely that he was her source for this, too. 

With that in mind, check out the news that led that column:

Incoming & outgoing: The rumor mill is going berserk!- To wit: Top Dem wags are whispering Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama’s new chief of staff, plans to exit the White House in two years in hopes of reclaiming his congressional seat — thereby enabling him to work toward becoming speaker of the House, his dream job.

Read more →

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Withdrawing Jarrett’s Candidacy as an F-U to Blagojevich

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The WSJ notices something I pointed out Tuesday. There was a two-hour meeting on November 10 at which Blago’s team tried to concoct a way to get Obama’s team to give something of value in exchange for Valerie Jarrett’s appointment to replace Obama as Senator. Here’s my version:

Then, on November 10, Blago appeared to have gotten his first rebuff from the Obama team. On that day, Blago and his aides (and his wife), including Advisor B, had a two hour conference call with advisors in DC, brainstorming ways they could "monetize" the Senate seat. At one point, Blago said that he would appoint Jarrett,"but if they feel like they can do this and not fucking give me anything . . . then I’ll fucking go [Senate Candidate 5].” At that point, Blago’s already incensed at Obama, saying, "“motherfucker [Obama] his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him.” […] By November 11, […] Blago said, “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them," it seems Obama has clearly already rebuffed Blago’s efforts.  And by the 12th, public reports had Jarrett announcing she didn’t want the seat.

The WSJ corrects my version, though, in one respect: it points out that CNN reported the night of the 10th that Jarrett withdrew her candidacy. Here’s 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.

But I think the WSJ asks the wrong question about the coincidence of these events. It asks,

But the big question today is this: Were any members of his transition team among the "Washington advisers" on the line during this marathon conference call, or did one of the participants fill them in about these wild ideas?

[snip]

At a bare minimum, the timing of Team Obama’s decision to remove Ms. Jarrett’s name from contention, or at least to remove her name from the public speculation about the post, seems extraordinarily lucky. It came on the very same day the FBI secretly recorded Mr. Blagojevich telling a huge conference call loaded with politicos, in Illinois and Washington, that he wasn’t about to give the Senate spot away for nothing.

Read more →

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Blagojevich’s SEIU Contact NOT Andy Stern

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Not This Man

Not This Man

My NPR station reported earlier today that the SEIU contact that Blagojevich spoke with–referenced in the complaint–was not Andy Stern. NPR said it was Tom Balanoff, President of SEIU Local 1.

A senior advisor to the SEIU has confirmed to me that the contact in the complaint is not Stern, though he could not confirm that it was Balanoff.

The SEIU advisor also told me that SEIU proactively contacted Fitzgerald’s office. I guess that was the same conversation when, according to SEIU’s earlier statement, Fitz asked SEIU not to share any information at that time.

I guess all those nutters trying to take down Obama and Stern are going to have to work harder to make a mountain out of a molehill. 

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Weeds, For Mark Ambinder

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I will leave it to those with much finer senses of snark than me to slam that crappy reporting of the NYT.

But this post from Mark Ambinder got my weed whacker out of whack, so I wanted to point out a few details for Ambinder, who is usually not so sloppy.

First, Ambinder crowns the guy who turned in Blago’s Senate seat sale as the most powerful guy around.

The most powerful person in Illinois politics is not David Axelrod. Not Valerie Jarrett. Not either the Daleys. Not either of the Madigans. Not Patrick Fitzgerald. It’s the person who dropped a dime on Rod Blagojevich, and it’s all the people who have information that Fitzgerald might be interested in. Someone dropped a dime on the Senate seat matter. Someone got fed up with the pettiness and went to the U.S. Attorney

Given the timeline, that "most powerful person in Illinois" appears to have been an FBI agent, listening to wiretaps placed at least a week before the "pettiness" in question began. I’m all in favor of celebrating the FBI’s work on this case. But it doesn’t mean that FBI agent is the most powerful woman in the room right now.

Then there’s this muddle.

Note: Fitzgerald didn’t seem to say, or didn’t say at all, that having a full and public accounting from the Obama team about their Blago contacts would damage his investigation.  Randal Samborn — am I wrong? Greg Craig? In fact, whereas, in the Valerie Plame investigation, President Bush may have been tangentially involved, or at least had an inkling that subordinates of his were involved, Obama does not have the same constraints.  There is no legal reason why he can’t comment, speculate, or engage in idle rumors on this whole turn of events. This isn’t to suggest that Obama should make off-the-cuff remarks about this or not take it seriously… it’s just that there doesn’t seem to be the same (veneer of a) legal justification for not doing so.

Mind you, I certainly agree that it would behoove Obama to get further out in front of this than he has thus far done. Read more →

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What Fitzgerald Is Hiding in His Blagojevich Complaint

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Two days after Fitz indicted Scooter Libby, I did a post showing how details Fitz left unstated in the indictment pointed directly at Dick Cheney.

Tricky Fitzgerald!! He’s been hiding Dick right in the middle of his Libby indictment.

Fifteen months later, the press finally noticed Fitz pointing to the cloud over the Vice President. 

Yesterday’s complaint against Blagojevich has similar silences worthy of note. We know this, partly, because Fitz tells us. He makes it clear that he has not included everything he’s got in this case, generally.

Because this affidavit is submitted for the limited purpose of securing a criminal complaint and corresponding arrest warrants, I have not included each and every fact known to me concerning this investigation.

That is, Fitz has only laid out what he needs to make the case on the two charges described here–the conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud to deprive Illinois of his honest services (this includes attempts to get campaign contributions, favorable coverage from the Trib, and money or a job for the Senate seat), and the attempt to extort the Tribune Company (the firing of editorial staff in exchange for help on Wrigley Field). Note already how this shifts the focus onto recent events–particularly the Trib bribery attempt–and away from his larger investigation into corruption; this allows him to keep much of the latter investigation (which undoubtedly relies on more cooperating witnesses than he has named) hidden for now. Indeed, note how the general corruption investigation generally jumps from evidence from the 2004 timeframe presented at Rezko’s trial to stuff collected from the wiretaps. Fitz doesn’t want to tell us everything about how he got from Rezko to the taps (except insofar as revealing some details of Rezko’s cooperation, which I’ll get to in a later post).

Similarly, Fitz tells us that he hasn’t revealed everything pertaining to Blago’s attempt to sell Obama’s Senate seat.

Set out below are summaries of certain of the conversations referenced above. This affidavit does not include all calls dealing with the corrupt efforts of ROD BLAGOJEVICH, JOHN HARRIS, and others to misuse the power of ROD BLAGOJEVICH to appoint a United States Senator for the personal gain of ROD BLAGOJEVICH and his family, Read more →

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Rahm Almost Certainly Didn’t Bust Blagojevich

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I know I reported the local Chicago Fox reporter’s scoop that Rahm may have turned Blago into Fitz.

CONATY: We did receive a tip this morning that perhaps all of this came together so quickly because the Governor may have reached out to Rahm Emanuel, the president-elect’s chief of staff, in attempting to leverage filling the Senate seat. And it may have been Rahm Emanuel who tipped the scale and made this move as quickly as it did.

Rahm now denies he was the one who tipped off the investigation. But it was already clear from the chronology that Rahm couldn’t have been the one to tip off the entire wiretap.

My question now is whether Rahm’s source’s reference to "overzealous reporting" suggests Rahm was involved at all.

First, as to the chronology, Fitz’s complaint gives a timeline in which Blago’s discussions about the Senate replacement starting on November 3, the day before the election. While it is possible that Fitz is withholding earlier conversations about it (I’ll return to this later), it’s clear that Blago’s thoughts about brokering the seat were still formulating on November 4, when he starting thinking about things he might ask for in exchange for the Senate appointment.

On November 4, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH spoke with Deputy Governor A. This was the same day as the United States Presidential election. With respect to the Senate seat, Deputy Governor A suggested putting together a list of things that ROD BLAGOJEVICH would accept in exchange for the Senate seat. ROD BLAGOJEVICH responded that the list “can’t be in writing.” Thereafter, ROD BLAGOJEVICH discussed whether he could obtain an ambassadorship in exchange for the Senate seat. [my emphasis]

In other words, even assuming Fitz isn’t giving us everything, it’s clear that Blago was just beginning to think about brokering the position. 

But we know the first wiretaps went in much earlier than that–on October 22–and that they were based on information that came to light in early October. 

… in early October 2008, the government obtained information that ROD BLAGOJEVICH was accelerating his corrupt fund raising activities to accumulate as much money as possible before the implementation of ethics legislation on January 1, 2009, that would severely curtail ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s ability to raise money from individuals and entities conducting business with the State of Illinois.

[snip]

On October 21, 2008, Chief Judge James F. Holderman signed an order authorizing the interception of oral communications for a 30-day period in two rooms at the Friends of Blagojevich office: Read more →

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Statement from SEIU Suggests Fitz Talked with SEIU

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I gotta disagree, politely, with Ian’s statement that the SEIU statement is "rather uninformative." Here’s the statement again, from Communications Director Ramona Oliver:

We have no reason to believe that SEIU or any SEIU official was involved in any wrongdoing.

In keeping with the U.S. Attorney’s request, we are not sharing information with the media at this time.

That statement tells us two very important things:

  1. Fitzgerald (or someone at his office) spoke with the SEIU, having made requests to the union that it not share information with the media
  2. After having spoken to the SEIU, the union believes that "no SEIU official was involved in any wrongdoing" 

Particularly given Fitz’s description of people coming forward to tell their sides of the story (and the damned familiarity of that "US Attorney’s request about not sharing information" from seeing it so often in the CIA Leak Case) I would imagine that Fitzgerald has heard SEIU’s side of any conversations with Blago, and found nothing much there to be interested in.

So, to answer Ian’s question:

Is any of this criminally corrupt?  Was Harris reading in that SEIU was willing to do the 3 way deal?  Was the request for a job effectively politely brushed off "gee, we’d love to, but ummm, other people are doing the work" or was it being seriously considered.  It’s hard to tell from the what’s in Fitzgerald’s document.

I’d say that my experience with Fitz’s detailed indictments/complaints, coupled with the SEIU statement, leads me to believe that Fitz doesn’t believe any of the SEIU’s involvement was criminally corrupt. At least not as far as Fitz knows about thus far. 

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