Blagojevich Trial Could Singe White House

[Geee]

Politico:

Rod Blagojevich trial could singe White House

By JONATHAN ALLEN & GLENN THRUSH | 7/8/10 4:29 AM EDT

It's the trial the White House hopes you won’t watch.

The federal corruption saga of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been rattling along during the sweltering Chicago summer, offering a daily dose of low-grade theatrics, low-impact bombshells and low-brow humor.

The top White House officials — President Barack Obama, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett — haven't been too badly bruised so far, by Chicago standards at least, even as federal prosecutors air wiretaps of Blagojevich's ugliest private conversations about them.

But despite the trial's Jerry Springer start, the threat of political damage remains serious for all of them – and another Democrat as well, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). On Wednesday, prosecutors attached Jackson’s name to allegations of a $1 million pay-to-play scheme for Obama's Senate seat – though Jackson has categorically denied any wrongdoing since Blagojevich's December 2008 arrest and he has not been accused of any illegal activity.

Obama — who crusaded against government-by-crony — was dragged into the proceedings last week when a top Chicago labor official testified that Obama tapped him to talk to Blagojevich about the Senate seat.

That testimony – by Tom Balanoff of SEIU Local 1 – is the strongest challenge yet to a White House transition office timeline from December 2008 that lays out the Obama team’s discussions surrounding the efforts to fill the seat.

Balanoff told jurors that he answered Obama's call on the eve of the presidential election and told the soon-to-be president that he would pitch Jarrett to Blagojevich – but that call isn’t mentioned in the transition team report, prepared by then-incoming White House counsel Greg Craig.

Also in December 2008, Obama told reporters that "no representatives of mine" tried to cut a deal with Blagojevich over the Senate seat.

Still, nothing in the trial has captured Washington’s attention yet — not even a new revelation about the president's role in the Senate seat spectacle or the prospect that defense lawyers could call Emanuel and Jarrett to the stand when it's their turn to grill witnesses.

Quite simply, Blago has had trouble breaking through in the summer of BP, Elena Kagan and Gen. Stan McChrystal. Some chalk it up to the governor himself – whose F-bombs, hair-helmet and Celebrity Apprentice stint make him seem more like a reckless and cartoonish figure than the menacing double-dealer portrayed by prosecutors, charged with trying to sell the president’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.

“Given my 25 years in Chicago politics, I think this administration has escaped the bullet,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), a veteran of the Chicago political wars. “People were saved from embarrassment – not criminal prosecution – because the governor was acting in such an outrageous manner.”

[Pepper]

Singe?

 

I want to see this tape in front of the White House

 

Potential Crime Scene Do Not Cross: Investigation in Progress

[Geee]

Pepper. Fat chance

[Valin]

Drip Drip Drip Drip

[NCTexan]

The White House press office has adopted a classic duck-and-cover PR strategy, ignoring questions, downplaying their interest in the spectacle and distancing themselves from the proceedings.

 

I really get a funny picture in my mind...

 

L'il Barry, RahmmyBoy and Sweet Valerie seeking shelter and trying to hide in vain.

 

[octex]

Regardless of the outcome of Blago's trial, he should write one of those "tell all" books that names the names and discloses the payoffs and other criminal activities in Illinois, Chicago and the Chicago Mob now in the Obama regime.

 

(Whew! Sorry for that very long sentence. )

 

Blago is already bankrupt before even paying for his defense at this trial. A top selling book on the criminality and collusion that has been occurring for years, involving Obama, Daley and that whole crowd, would probably bail him out financially.