Blagojevich Scandal Casts a Very Unwanted Pall Over Obama's Transition to Power

President-Elect Spurned Illinois Governor on Pick for Successor to His Senate Seat -- And the Tough-Talking Blagojevich Reacted With an Obscenity-Laced Tirade Against Him, Trancscripts of FBI Wiretaps Show; Republicans Already Smelling Blood 40 Days Before Inauguration



Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois speaks as then-Senator Barack Obama listens during a news conference in St. Louis in this June 20, 2005 file photo. Federal authorities arrested Blagojevich on Tuesday on charges that he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the now-president-elect to the highest bidder. Blagojevich has defied calls by Obama and others to resign. (File photo: James A. Finley/AP)

(Posted 5:0 a.m. EST Thursday, December 11, 2008)

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SPECIAL REPORT
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By BEN SMITH and JONATHAN MARTIN
Politico.com

At first blush, Barack Obama comes out of the Rod Blagojevich scandal smelling like a rose. The prosecutor at a news conference seemed to give the president-elect a seal of approval, and the Illinois governor himself was caught on tape complaining that Obama was not interested in crooked schemes.

But make no mistake: For Obama and his team, the Blagojevich scandal is a stink bomb tossed at close range.

Legal bills, off-message headlines, and a sustained attempt by Republicans to show that Obama is more a product of Illinois’s malfeasance-prone political culture than he is letting on — all are likely if the Blagojevich case goes to trial or becomes an extended affair.

Obama and his aides have so far mounted a tight-lipped defense, publicly distancing themselves from Blagojevich’s alleged plans to profit personally from his power to fill Obama’s newly-vacant Senate seat with firm but vague denials of any involvement.

Privately, Obama allies are noting that the foul-mouthed governor and the president-elect, though both Democrats atop the Illinois power structure, are hardly close: Obama did not back Blagojevich in his 2002 primary race for governor, and Blagojevich did not back Obama in his 2004 Senate primary.

REPUBLICANS ALREADY TRYING TO TIE OBAMA TO BLAGOJEVICH

Republicans, though, plan to keep the pressure on. Republican National Chairman Robert “Mike” Duncan on Tuesday said Obama’s initial response to questions about the governor was inadequate.

South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson, seeking the national party post, went further. He called on Obama to release any records of discussions between his transition team and Blagojevich about Obama’s successor – citing Obama’s oft-repeated pledge for greater transparency.

And, in an interview with Politico.com, Illinois state Republican chairman Andy McKenna pressed Obama to commit to keeping U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald -- who busted former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- in his post until the corruption cases run their course.

One prominent Chicago Democrat close to many of those named in the indictment suggested the risk for Obama is “Whitewater-type exposure.” That was a reference to an ill-fated Arkansas real estate deal that produced a series lengthy and highly intrusive investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s that never proved illegal actions by the former president and first lady.

What this Democrat meant with his analogy -- which on the facts so far seems a bit premature -- was that Obama could suffer by being in the proximity of a back-scratching and deal-making culture, even if he was mostly a bystander. “What will splatter on to Obama is he is to some degree a product of this culture, and he has never entirely stood against it,” said the Democrat, who wanted anonymity for fear of antagonizing the president-elect.

Indeed, at a minimum it will be hard for a transition team that wants to shine a light on their plans to clean up Washington if the steaming compost pile of Illinois politics — and its florid tradition of bribes, extortion, and payback — is in the news.

But there are less obvious hazards. Anyone who has ever been near a public corruption case -- and many of Obama’s top advisers have, thanks to their experience in the Clinton years -- knows the hassles that can torment even innocent people. Even peripheral figures wind up hiring expensive lawyers. At trial, testimony by minor witnesses becomes a major news event if it is someone close to the president taking the stand.

GOVERNOR CAPTURED ON TAPE RIPPING OBAMA IN OBSCENITY-LACED TIRADE

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pointed out during questions and answers at his news conference that “there's no reference in the complaint to any conversation involving the president-elect or indicating that the president-elect was aware of it.”

Obama advisers argue that Blagojveich's alleged crimes -- extorting campaign contributions from a children's hospital, demanding the firing of the top editors at the now-bankrupt Tribune Company's flagship newspaper, theChicago Tribune, in return for state assistance -- are so over-the-top that they speak for themselves, and will only serve to taint the disgraced governor.

Obama aides see proof of his vindication in the fact that Blagojevich, according to a transcript of the secret tapes, complains that the president-elect’s team wouldn’t give him anything. Obama emerged personally untarnished in the 78-page complaint against Blagojevich, who turned 52 on Wednesday.

In fact, the transcript shows the foul-mouthed governor unleashing an obscenity-laced tirade against the president-elect, branding him a "motherf-----" and a "lily-livered" reformer who, instead of a bribe, wouldn’t give the angry Blagojevich “anything except appreciation.”

"F--- him!" the transcript quotes Blagojevich as saying, referring to Obama.

OBAMA LIKELY TO FACE PRESSURE TO KEEP FITZGERALD AS U.S. ATTORNEY

But there are enough unanswered questions to give his political opponents plenty of grist, starting with Obama’s curt denial that he had ever spoken to Blagojevich about how to fill Obama’s vacant seat.

On Tuesday, the president-elect's chief political adviser, David Axelrod, corrected his own suggestion last month that Obama and Blagojevich had spoken about filling Obama’s vacant seat. Spokespeople did not respond to a question of when Obama and Blagojevich last spoke, and about what.

And there is the question of Fitzgerald’s future. Presidents can appoint their own U.S. Attorneys, but Republicans aim to all but dare Obama to remove the crusading Fitzgerald before he's done cleaning out corruption in Chicago and Springfield.

"What he should do tomorrow is say, 'Patrick Fitzgerald has a job and can have for as long as he wants,'" McKenna told Politico. "Some have wondered if Barack Obama would keep Fitzgerald [as U.S. Attorney]. It would be great if he confirms that he plans to."

A LONG HISTORY OF CORRUPTION IN ILLINOIS POLITICS

Meanwhile, the case is likely to turn reporters into students of Illinois political history, just as the Clinton presidency produced a generation of reporters and opposition researchers obsessed with turning over the rocks of Arkansas politics.

In 2002, when Blagojevich left the U.S. House (opening up a seat for Rahm Emanuel, who's now leaving it to become Obama's White House chief of staff), Obama joined other black Chicago Democrats -- including his one-time rival Bobby Rush and his state Senate mentor, Emil Jones -- in supporting Roland Burris, an African-American former Illinois comptroller and state attorney general.

In a further effort to put distance between Obama and the governor, Obama allies are pre-emptively noting that Emanuel’s claim this summer in an article in The New Yorker magazine that he and Obama were “the top strategists of Blagojevich's victory” in 2002 was inaccurate.

In a subsequent article in the Springfield political publication Capitol Fax this summer, now being circulated by Obama allies, Emanuel walked back his assertion.

"David and I have worked together on campaigns for decades,” Emanuel said, referring to David Wilhelm, the Democratic operative who was a top adviser to Blagojevich in 2002 and strongly denied that Obama had been involved in that race. “Like always, he's right and I'm wrong."

Further, the allies note that Blagojevich did not support Obama's U.S. Senate run in 2004 in what was initially thought to be a hotly contested primary.

Still, as Obama emerged from the sheltered, reformist enclave of Hyde Park in the 1990s, he made valuable friends among the bosses of its political machine – Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of the legendary mayor and Cook County Democratic political boss Richard J. Daley), Emil Jones and many others. He bragged at times that Chicago politics had made him tough. He also campaigned on an ethics bill he helped pass in the Illinois State Senate.

And he seemed still to be in that Chicago straddle when asked about Blagojevich’s arrest yesterday, mustering only word that he was “saddened” and “sobered” at a time when even other Illinois Democrats were demanding Blagojevich resign.

A DEFIANT BLAGOJEVICH REFUSES TO STEP DOWN, MAY FACE IMPEACHMENT

Obama himself called for Blagojevich to resign on Wednesday, but the governor clung defiantly to power, ignoring not only Obama's call to step down, but also warnings from Senate Democrats that they won't accept anyone Blagojevich appoints to serve out the two years remaining in Obama's Senate term.

The Constitution gives the Senate authority to refuse to allow a member to be sworn in. Many officials said Blagojevich should be impeached by the Illinois Legislature if he refuses to step down.

"He [Blagojevich] appears to listen to no one, and his conduct becomes more outrageous as time goes on," said Steve Brown, spokesman for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat.

Other Democrats in Washington edged away from calls for a special election to fill Obama's vacated seat in the Senate, hoping that Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn would soon become governor and fill the vacancy on his own. That would assure the Democrats of holding the seat, and on a much faster timetable than any balloting would allow.

Ensconced in his downtown office, Blagojevich gave no sign he was contemplating resigning, and dispatched his spokeswoman, Kelley Quinn, to say it was "business as usual" in his 16th-floor suite, situated a few blocks from Obama's transition headquarters.

"At the end of the day, the top priority for our office is to serve the people, and we have not lost sight of that, nor will we lose sight of that," Kelley Quinn said.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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Volume III, Number 81
Special Report Copyright 2008, Capitol news Company, LLC.
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