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* UPDATED x2 * The smoking guns are there, Neil

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Blagojevich Trial

*** UPDATE 1 *** * As of 11:16 this morning, the Sun-Times had posted five substance-packed updates on the Blagojevich trial…

* Blagojevich trial: Sam Adam Sr. counseled in questioning

* John Johnston: Contribution and legislation were "linked"

* Blagojevich trial: Johnston testifies on racetrack bill

* Blagojevich trial: Racetrack owner John Johnston takes the stand

* Blagoevich trial: Accountant questioned about IFA nomination

And the Tribune had posted just one…

The big question heading into this morning’s session of the Blagojevich corruption trial was whether Blagojevich’s lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., and U.S. District Judge James Zagel would again butt heads.

But that was overshadowed by an even bigger development: Former first lady Patti Blagojevich apparently cut her long brown hair over the weekend and showed up in court with a short bobbed hairdo.

Scintillating, no?

*** UPDATE 2 *** From the Sun-Times…

Bradley Tusk, a onetime aide to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is testifying about an alleged shakedown scheme contained in the government’s indictment.

Tusk said while he was deputy governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich told him he wanted a message delivered to then-U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel: A $2 million grant for the Chicago Academy, a school in Emanuel’s district, was on hold unless his brother, Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, held a fund-raiser.

Ari is the inspiration for the “Entourage” characte, Ari Gold.

Tusk said he didn’t deliver the message but called Blagojevich’s lawyer to tell him: “You need to get your client under control.”

[ *** End of Updates *** ]

* Says Neil Steinberg…

I keep waiting for the big crime to show up in the testimony– and maybe it will, some obvious quid-pro-quo for Obama’s old Senate seat, the “OK, you give me $10 million and you’re a senator” moment. But I haven’t heard it yet. My gut tells me that Blago’s crime is going to boil down to the same crime Miriam Santos was convicted of — the crime of saying on tape what many others say unrecorded.

Neil should listen to the tapes. From my weekly syndicated newspaper column…

Back in 2003, Rod Blagojevich’s former congressional chief of staff Dave Stricklin was asked by Chicago Magazine to recall an example of his former boss’s “goal-oriented approach to his congressional work.”

“Having X amount of dollars raised by X date,” was Stricklin’s response.

The U.S. attorney’s office has posted several audio recordings online related to Lon Monk’s testimony against Rod Blagojevich. I listened to them all last week, some of them twice, and it was beyond obvious that nothing changed for Blagojevich from the time he was a congressman right up until he was arrested.

We mostly knew that already, of course. Blagojevich broke every state fundraising record in the book. And the recordings show he crossed a very big line.

Blagojevich’s voice sounds almost desperate at times on the recordings as he tries to make sure he has $4 million in his campaign bank account by the end of 2008. Dec. 31 of that year was the last day that most state contractors could contribute to his campaign because of a new law, so the push was on.

“(H)ere’s the thing,” brother Rob said during a phone call two days before the dramatic Dec. 8 FBI arrest. “Four million dollars is the target. Right now, when I do my math, we come up short by a quarter of a million, two-fifty, but it, but there’s enough there, like a Pritzker, like a Zell, like a …”

“Oh, this is no good, forget that,” a clearly peeved governor interjected. Blagojevich berated his brother for not making the goal. “This is not good, I mean your, your numbers keep coming down! Your numbers keep coming down! You were safely at … 4 million, now we’re down to 250,000 short of that?”

In the end, they ended up $1.3 million short of that $4 million target. The big money never came in because of that early morning visit by the feds.

There are definitely some “smoking guns” on the tapes. For instance, five days before he was arrested, Blagojevich and Monk talked for the umpteenth time about how best to convince racetrack owner John Johnston to kick in a huge contribution by the end of the year. At the time, Johnston was also hoping that Blagojevich would sign a bill that greatly helped the horse racing industry.

Blagojevich advises that Monk tell Johnston that he will wait to sign the bill until right after the first of the year, suggesting he say that the governor will sign a whole bunch of bills at once and Johnston’s will be included in that stack in order to bury the story.

Monk asks Blagojevich how many bills are still waiting to be signed. Blagojevich guesstimates a hundred and reiterates that Monk relay to Johnston how important it is that December is a “key month” for contributions and that his campaign had been waiting a year for the cash. Blagojevich then says that he needs to speak to his government chief of staff right away.

A call is placed and the governor asks how many bills are awaiting his signature. He’s told there are 30.

“Thirty bills?” Blagojevich asks on the recording. “And they’re all the same timing?… Yeah, so don’t do any of ‘em,” he orders his chief of staff. “I wanna do ‘em all together. OK. In toto. OK. All 30.”

After the phone call Blagojevich asks Monk to rehearse what he plans to say to Johnston and advises “Be careful.” Monk says he’ll tell Johnston to “stop screwin’ around,” and will inform him of the governor’s plan to “group all these bills together.”

Blagojevich suggests that Monk tell Johnston that the governor would “like some separation between (the contribution) and signing the bill.”

“Define separation,” Monk says.

“A week,” Blagojevich replies.

You can’t hardly get busted more clearly than that.

Stricklin, the former congressional chief of staff who so accurately described Blagojevich’s “work ethic” back in 2003, was mentioned on the FBI recordings as well. Blagojevich and Monk talked four days before the arrest about people who should be loyal and pony up but were refusing.

Blagojevich: “That f—— Stricklin gets me sick.”

Monk: “He’s such a f——- stuffed shirt.”

Blagojevich: “Gets me sick.”

Stricklin, of course, had the last laugh.

* Related…

* Defense, judge could butt heads again

* Ali Ata Back on the Stand in Blagojevich Trial

* Ata to be back on stand today in Blagojevich case

* Testimony resumes today in Blagojevich trial

* Rod Blagojevich Trial Day 11: The week ahead, recap

* Blog-ojevich: Tweets and posts from the trial

* Wiretap excerpts

* Tapes show Blagojevich as feisty, combative

* A tale of two stories: Is it the best of times or the worst of times for Blago?

* Characters in federal court could fill menu

* Blagojevich trial: Day 11 and last week’s recap

* The trial at two weeks

* Next Task for Blago Jury: Fighting Boredom

* Blagojevich wiretap tapes available online

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 9:50 am

Comments

The Blago case is a comedy simply because these guys were so hamhanded and obvious, even without the tapes.

Still, if I were on the jury, I would be curious if Levine and Rezko don’t testify. They tie it all together.

Where is Rezko?

Comment by wordslinger Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 10:13 am
Neil wanted to use Blagojevich to paint a bigger picture. He wanted to show himself bigger than politicians by claiming that they are all guilty of similar things. So, it really wasn’t about Blagojevich, it was about Neil, and how much better Neil is than our average elected representatives.

You see Neil has a problem when an elected official takes campaign money from someone or a group Neil doesn’t like. Especially when the elected official votes in a way that supports the views of the someone or group Neil doesn’t like. When they do this, Neil thinks it is wrong.

What he then says to himself, but then mistakenly puts into his column, is that since the someone or group he doesn’t like gave that elected official money, then that someone or group he doesn’t like bribed the official. Because, Neil has decided that his views on an issue is the only correct one to take, so if an elected official doesn’t agree with Neil, then there was some kind of bribery that occurred to convince the elected official to vote the way Neil is opposed. Since he believes he is always right, then there has to be a crime committed when this happens.

He just uses Blagojevich to make this point, and to satisfy his frustrations with elected officials who don’t vote the way he wants them to by tying them to Blagojevich.

A lot of people think this way, not just Neil. The good thing is that most of these people don’t get paid to spout out this kind of elitist tripe.

In Neil’s defense, it is hard to go through life getting paid for your opinions. It warps your self image, and you lose your way. What is helpful is to have others around to remind you that you are nothing more than just another opinionated individual who knows very little about what you are writing opinions on, but lucky enough to get paid to do it.

So Neil, this is that reminder.

Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 10:19 am
In this day and age, we need to see a big “Law and Order” type gotcha! We need to see Blago on the stand getting grilled by the prosecutor and simply give a weeping confession. Sadly, real life law is not as exciting as tv and takes longer than 42 minutes running time to get justice done.

Comment by Wumpus Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 10:32 am
Blago got into politics via his father-in-law the ultimate Chicago Democratic ward boss. Talk about being affected by the early training in your job. Apparently what the shallow and not-that-bright novice Blago picked up at his father-in-law’s knee was, do what ya can to keep the riffraff happy but in the end it’s all about the money.. and you. Even Mell must be astounded at how our Blago ran with this notion…and how successful he was with it until he wasn’t. Had a good run though, courtesy of an awful lot of Dem supporters who now act like they were living out of the country during the Blago years.

Comment by cassandra Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 10:33 am
Neil Steinberg is looking at the scoreboard and it’s 0-0 after the first quarter. He thinks this means the Bears are losing the game. I think it means there’s a lot of football left to be played.

Comment by 47th Ward Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 10:44 am
I don’t think there will be a smoking gun, it will be more like a smoking mushroom cloud or like looking for the haystack, not the needle.
I am embarrassed that these guys got to run the state for so long.

BTW, I’m appreciative Capitol Fax takes the time to look at the evidence and give accurate information.

Comment by Phineas J. Whoopee Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 10:52 am
47th — I like that analogy.

Also, if memory serves, they have yet to even broach the shenanigans regarding the Obama seat.

Like you said, a lot of game left to be played.

Comment by unclesam Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 10:52 am
It’s ignorance to think that campaign contributions aren’t usually traded for support. We do have a system of legalized bribery, and the Green Party’s existence and success is in part a reaction to that very real system.

However, Blagojevich crossed that legal line. I made the analogy to my grandfather the other day. It wasn’t “I’ll scratch your back, and you scratch mine”. It was “Scratch my back or I’ll punch you in the face.”

I think the largest problem the prosecution has with the narrative is defining Blagojevich’s endgame. He was raking in the campaign cash, but it doesn’t look like he was taking it for personal use. The problem is, Blago didn’t know Blago’s endgame. Vice-president? Cabinent position? Private sector? Sweet job for Patti? The prosecuting is a victim of its own success at stopping the criminal before he carried out his partially-formed plot.

I still think he’s going to jail for some of the 24 counts.

Comment by Sacks Romana Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 11:04 am
The prosecution needs to keep throwing out the $20 million figure that Blago raised through all of his pay to play schemes. The defense claims Blago is broke and didn’t benefit from any of this. His campaign got all of the money. All Illinois contractors and consultants knew that to get selected for contracts you had to kick in to the campaign. For the big fish, the Gov and his boys held up their contracts or bill signings until they paid the campaign. This point needs to be driven home.

Comment by Stooges Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 11:56 am
The Green Party has had success?

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 3:00 pm
=== courtesy of an awful lot of Dem supporters who now act like they were living out of the country during the Blago years. ====

Actuall a number of the top players were republican and republian supporters. The Big money here flowed rom levine and Cellini. Apparently the long term GOP raiders ripping off the State were happy to conintue got fro sale, they just unfrotunetly picked a dem partner who lacked subtlety.

Comment by Ghost Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 3:28 pm
Hey bradley tusk,
I told you so. So many times.

Comment by nino brown Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 3:46 pm
Same here, NB, same here.

Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 3:47 pm
the sun times has been killing the trib with its coverage. stellar work, ST.

Comment by anon Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 4:21 pm
Missing, is, Bradley he may not have been your client, but he was your Governor too

Comment by steve schnorf Monday, Jun 21, 10 @ 5:13 pm