Obama’s Self-Serving Blago Report Creates More Questions Than It Answers
So says Politico:
Why did Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett communicate with Craig through her lawyer, who the report does not name, and how many conversations did incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have with Blagojevich?
The report says Emanuel urged Blagojevich to tap Jarrett for the Senate seat during “one or two telephone calls.” But in the next paragraph, it refers to “those early conversations with the governor,” and in a conference call unveiling the report, Craig said Emanuel “had a couple of conversations with the governor.”
Equally unclear is what exactly was reviewed in the report that conclude that nothing inappropriate occurs, and whether there were any transition emails or other records covering the Senate seat selection process.
“We asked each individual who we thought might have had some contact or some communication that would be meaningful” to reconstruct “any contacts or communications, and that would include checking cell phone records or emails, and we inquired about that,” Craig said. He added that “we’ve got the information that is required,” and said he didn’t know of any written communications.
Also, the report revealed that prosecutors interviewed Obama, himself, and did so after he had publicly declared he had been unaware of Blagojevich’s alleged plot to sell off the Senate seat Obama had vacated after winning the presidency, raising questions about why they took the unusual step of interviewing the president-elect, what they asked him and whether he was under oath.
What’d I’d like to know is how Obama and his people didn’t know Blago was shopping around the Senate appointment when, by all appearances, he shopped it around to them.
They turned Blago down, I’m certain of that, but the fact that he shopped it to them indicates that they knew what was going on. And if they knew, why didn’t they report it?
