“He talked and he talked and that is all he did. . . . They want you to believe his talk is a crime. It’s not.”
That statement Thursday by Rod Blagojevich’s attorney Aaron Goldstein, as reported by the Sun-Times’ “Blago Blog,” pretty much sums up the former governor’s defense in his federal criminal trial:
“I’m not sayin’ . . . I’m just sayin’.”
Mind you, Rod wasn’t saying that he wanted to extract a bribe in exchange for appointing various people to fill Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat. He was just tossing around ideas. He didn’t really mean it.
“He’s not perfect,” Goldstein said. “He likes to talk.”
Rod didn’t really want a bunch of billionaires to pony up cash to fund a nonprofit group in exchange for appointing Valerie Jarrett to the Senate seat. He was just talking about it. And the fact that he stopped talking about the scheme after Jarrett withdrew her name means nothing. He just has attention deficit disorder or something. He quickly moved along, and so should we. There’s really nothing to see here.
Um, OK. Hold on. What about when he told his brother to be careful about negotiating a huge cash payoff in exchange for appointing U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to the Senate seat because the whole world would be listening?
“‘The whole world is listening’ is a phrase I use all the time,” Blagojevich said on the stand.
But, wait. When Blagojevich discovered soon after that his office was being bugged by the FBI, didn’t he then order an aide to “undo” the negotiations on the Jackson appointment?
All talk. No big deal. There wasn’t anything there to begin with.
Excuse me, but what about when he told an aide that he wanted to hit up the CEO of Children’s Memorial Hospital for a $50,000 campaign contribution while discussing a state grant for that hospital? Didn’t he also make a call to see if he could hold up the grant?
Nah, there’s nothing to that. He was just thinking out loud.
But the grant wasn’t actually released until after he left office, right?
Hey, he tried to have the money released after he was arrested by the FBI. So, see? It’s all just talk.
“Look at his actions,” Blagojevich’s lawyer said Thursday. That’s how you will know what was in his mind.
You see, Rod never actually came right out and told the hospital CEO, or a big tollway contractor, or Rep. Jackson or anybody else that he wanted a campaign contribution or a job or whatever in exchange for doing them a favor. Others he sent might have said some words to that effect, but they weren’t sayin’. They were just sayin’. Plus, how can Rod control what his own emissaries say? Not to mention that just asking for a contribution isn’t illegal. Never mind that he said privately that he wanted something in return. He didn’t really want anything. It was all just talk. There’s nothing to it.
“This case is about nothing,” Goldstein said. Blagojevich got nothing and he did nothing.
All Rod did was talk.
“I’m not sayin’ . . . I’m just sayin’.”
His lawyers are clearly hoping the jurors will buy into that line of bunk. But maybe they’ll think about it a bit differently. Maybe they’ll assume it’s what a bookie might say if you fall behind on your gambling debts.
“I’m not sayin’ I’ll break your legs if you don’t pay me tomorrow. I’m just sayin’ you might have trouble walking for a while.”
