Say Anything Blog

It also confirms that Rahm Emanuel had multiple conversations with Blago and that Rahm, Valerie Jarrett and Obama himself have all been interviewed by federal investigators.

The report was released Tuesday as an Obama transition official confirmed that Obama and two of his top aides, Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, have been interviewed in connection with the federal investigation into Blagojevich.

An internal review prepared for President-elect Barack Obama says his incoming chief of staff had multiple conversations with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s office, but no one close to Obama suspected that the governor might be trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat as prosecutors allege.

The report was released Tuesday as an Obama transition official confirmed that Obama and two of his top aides, Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, have been interviewed in connection with the federal investigation into Blagojevich.

Incoming White House attorney Greg Craig, who conducted the internal review at Obama’s request, found that the president-elect had no contact with Blagojevich or any of his staff about the Senate seat he vacated to take over the presidency.

There are two problems here:

First, according to the complaint against Blago originally filed by the Feds, Blago explicitly stated that he had shopped the sale of the Senate seat to the Obama camp and that they weren’t willing to give up anything for it.

From section 104 of the affidavit accompanying the complaint:

Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.”

If Blago went to Obama looking for payment for a favorable appointment how can Obama or his people claim that they didn’t know Blago was shopping the seat around?  In other phone conversations Blago also says that he threatened to appoint someone Obama didn’t like if Obama didn’t play ball.  Again, that would imply that Obama should have known what Blago was doing and should have reported it.

Second, Obama is still claiming that he never had any contact with Blago about the appointment.  Yet, back in November, multiple media outlets reported a meeting between Obama and Blago in the past tense suggesting that the meeting had already happened.  Some of these mentions have been retracted, but nobody has ever cleared up why the meeting was reported as though it happened.

Obama claims he never met with Blago, but I think someone needs to explain to the American people why the Chicago Tribune (among other media outlets) reported such a meeting.