As we’ve outlined below, it was beyond bad judgment for President-Elect Obama to be negotiating with a Governor under intense federal investigation. When the feds arrested Blagojevich Dec. 9, 2008, and announced they had extensive tape recorded conversations as evidence, it created at minimum an appearance problem for the incoming administration.
So, it told its incoming Chief Counsel Greg Craig to perform damage control in the form of a report that the press dutifully reported exonerated the Obama team when it was released two days before Christmas that year.
Now that the report has performed its short-term goals and is safely extinct as far as the mainstream press is concerned, let’s compare what it says to the testimony in the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial. We will be doing this as the trial progresses.
Our first look comes as Tom Balanoff, president of the Illinois chapter of the mighty Service Employees International Union, was called to the stand and said Obama called him the night before the election. Here is Balanoff’s version of the call:
“Tom, i want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat,” Obama told him.
Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010.
Obama said he wasn’t publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill.
“I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria,” Balanoff said Obama told him. “I said: ‘thank you, I’m going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich.”
So Barack singles out Jarrett alone for a message to be sent to Blagojevich. And, at $1.8 million, SEIU happens to be one of Blagojevich’s largest campaign contributors. Here’s what the WH report says of Obama’s activities during that time:
The President-Elect had no contact or communication with Governor Blagojevich or members of his staff about the Senate seat. In various conversations with transition staff and others, the President-Elect expressed his preference that Valerie Jarrett work with him in the White House. He also stated that he would neither stand in her way if she wanted to pursue the Senate seat nor actively seek to have her or any other particular candidate appointed to the vacancy.
Did Barack “actively seek” to have Jarrett appointed to the seat. I’d say picking up the phone to call a powerful emissary to visit Blagojevich with the Jarrett message fits the bill. Especially considering the emissary could have wreaked considerable havoc to Blagojevich’s future campaign fund, which was needed to pay for his legal defense.
So, that paragraph in the WH report is outright false with its use of the “actively” phraseology and is otherwise massively misleading. This from an administration promising a new era of transparency and ethics. They couldn’t even keep that promise until the Inauguration.
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