Patterico's Pontifications

12/12/2008

Rahm Emanuel May Have Talked to Blago About Senate Succession

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:32 am



On multiple occasions. Ed Morrissey reports that, if it’s true, Emanuel will probably show up on the FBI wiretaps.

It’s unlikely that anything stunning will show up, like clear and explicit financial negotiations over the seat. After all, Emanuel hasn’t been arrested by the feds. Then again, as Ed points out, it’s unlikely that Emanuel tipped off the feds, given the way he’s been running from the press.

The interesting thing will be whether any unsavory discussions came up that arguably generated a duty to inform Obama or the FBI. This could prove interesting.

15 Responses to “Rahm Emanuel May Have Talked to Blago About Senate Succession”

  1. No, the big point, is that IF they have evidence of Rahm or an associate meeting with Blago, it means that Team O!’s instinctive reflex was to lie about it.

    Now, that’s HOPE and CHANGE I can believe in.

    Techie (07c8ee)

  2. It is racist to even speculate about this.

    Plus, Baracky has told you that he and his staff had no contact, with Blagojevich, then some contact, then parsing, followed by more parsing. They are still trying to figure out which lie to run with.

    JD (6a82b7)

  3. I hope Rahm gets the cell next to Blago.

    PCD (7fe637)

  4. Place your bets, round and round she goes…

    How many big fish did Fitzgerald let off the hook? By exposing the phone taps early, Rahm Emanuel, Jessie Jackson Jr, and Barrak Obama all got a heads up just in time avoid being caught up in Fitzgerald’s trap.

    But, it wasn’t Fitzgerald’s fault all those high profile Democrat politicians evaded exposure, the Chicago Tribune made him do it. Otherwise Fitzgerald would have collected unimpeachable evidence, secured grand jury indictments, and followed standard investigative practices. But, if it wasn’t the newspaper, it was fear Blogo might make an appointment and cause trouble in the Senate. One or the other, depending on who’s asking.

    Keep in mind there is absolutely no conclusive evidence Fitzgerald spoiled the investigation in order to protect big shot Democrats. Nope, none. But, I have to admit I’ve got a slight tingle running up my left leg.

    Ropelight (5b609a)

  5. I think it would be perfectly fair to put Fitzgerald before an investigator to determine if he did anything silly to minimize the political fallout.

    I think he did no such thing, but the fact is he did let a lot of crooks go free (this is the way Chicago works, and we all know what would have happened and that many people involved will never get in trouble for it). Fitz deserves to be investigated if only to make it clear that this wiretap leak wasn’t from him and the awful timing wasn’t deliberate. We should find who is responsible for that and deal with them.

    Juan (4cdfb7)

  6. Ropelight — how do you know Fitzgerald doesn’t have that now?

    There is a three week period completely missing from the affidavit. From mid-November to the first week of December is not mentioned at all. You think nothing was going on in that time frame?

    Frankly, I think Emanuel is “Individual No 1” — the person who went to the feds the first week of October talking about Blago trying to shake-down everyone under the sun for contributions in advance of the new ethics rules going into effect on Jan. 1.

    Individual No. 1 was tasked with taking Blago’s demands to “Presidential Advisor No. 1” — which is clearly Axlerod.

    There is no other description of who Individual No. 1, other than we know he is the guy who gave Fitzgerald all the PC to secure the wiretaps for Blago’s fundraising headquarters and his house. You know how hard that would have been to establish?

    Now consider the fact that Blago held the Cong. seat once occupied by Rostenkowski, and after Blago won the governor’s race in 2002, Emanuel won Blago’s old seat.

    Those guys come from the political genes in Chicago.

    WLS (26b1e5)

  7. Mark Levin has made the case that unless there were discussions that are unmistakably about enrichment for Blago, there is probably nothing illegal about his demanding a cabinet post in exchange for Valerie Jarrett. Such favor-trading goes on in D.C. all the time, and always has. OTOH, in the case of #5 and “something tangible” and “a million dollars,” that’s clearly a bribe no matter how you slice it.

    A question nobody has yet answered: What’s so hot about Jarrett? Who Della She Anyway?

    L.N. Smithee (9c1fce)

  8. If Fitzgerald hadn’t pulled the plug when he did, he might have been standing outside Jessie Jackson Jr’s house at 6am the next morning telling him the FBI had the place surrounded, that he had 15 minutes to come out with his hands up.

    Put yourself in Fitzgerald’s place, do you want to arrest Blogo prematurely, or wait and let Jessie Jackson Jr possibly incriminate himself?

    Ropelight (5b609a)

  9. JD wrote:

    Plus, Baracky has told you that he and his staff had no contact, with Blagojevich, then some contact, then parsing, followed by more parsing. They are still trying to figure out which lie to run with.

    What will be very interesting to see is if the Obama Administration’s website will be regularly scrubbed the way his campaign site and his transition site have been.

    Something that I noted back in the days of the Clinton Administration is that even when Clinton changed his story under oath about what he said in a Roll Call interview with Ed Henry and Morton Kondracke shortly after the revelation of his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, the official transcript on the whitehouse.gov website stayed the same.

    All the details are here, courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

    L.N. Smithee (9c1fce)

  10. The Feds have Blago on tape saying Obama wouldn’t play ball with him over Baracky’s preferred Senate candidate. To me this means the approach was made and discussed with somebody from Team Messiah. The logical person due to his prior relationship with Blago would be Rahmbo.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  11. At #7, LNS asked, “What’s so hot about (Valerie) Jarrett?

    Look her up at Wikipedia. She’s got quite a pedigree, very impressive on both sides of her family and back at least 2 generations. Her Uncle is Vernon Jordan, and she comes from about as high up in black society as it’s possible to get. She was born in Shiraz, Iran and speaks Farsi. If she was white they’d call her a blue blood.

    Jarrett shows up again and again in the continuing saga of Barrak Obama and his wife. Valerie’s mother is Barbara Bowman, who co-founded the Erikson Institute for childhood education and is a link to Bill Ayres.

    There’s lots more, but Valerie Jarrett is a very interesting and important woman.

    Ropelight (5b609a)

  12. At #10, rocky said, “The logical person due to his prior relationship with Blago would be Rahmbo.”

    I agree, it looks like Rahm Emanuel is the logical go-between, and he’s sure acting like he knows something he doesn’t want to talk about.

    Blogo could have agreed to accept Obama’s “appreciation” and expected to cash in later. But he decided to play hard ball, and now his rear end is on the hot seat.

    WLS at #6 says he thinks Rahm Emanuel is “Individual No.1” and gave Fitzgerald the probable cause necessary to get judicial approval for the wire taps. I’d like a little more confirmation, but it looks likely.

    Ropelight (5b609a)

  13. Ropelight – Jarrett is also one of Obama’s slumlord developer friends. That is a part of his background the media does not like to talk about.

    daleyrocks (5d22c0)

  14. Now consider the fact that Blago held the Cong. seat once occupied by Rostenkowski, and after Blago won the governor’s race in 2002, Emanuel won Blago’s old seat.

    They are also neighbors. They both live in Ravenswood Manor, a tiny conclave along the Chicago River on the North Side. There was a newspaper story that they agreed that Emanuel would run for Blagojevich’s Congressional seat when Blagojevich ran for Governor while jogging together.

    nk (094d4d)

  15. *enclave* but “conclave” may not be entirely off the mark when talking about The Machine. 😉

    nk (094d4d)


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