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. - Politico Story
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