Even by the standards of Illinois politics, this is a big one: this morning the FBI arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, on federal corruption charges. Perhaps the most staggering part of the indictment is that, as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald put it, “Blagojevich put a ‘for sale’ sign on the naming of a United States senator.”
Blagojevich is accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, including alleged attempts by the governor to try to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. Blagojevich also is accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.
It’s no secret that the president-elect wants his longtime adviser Valerie Jarrett named to his Senate seat; apparently, Blagojevich was irate that his former colleague wanted him to do so without offering him anything in return, referring to President-Elect Obama in highly profane and unflattering terms. According to the story in Politico,
Federal prosecutors allege that Blagojevich explored one possible quid-pro-quo—he’d appoint a top adviser to Obama in exchange for Obama giving Blagojevich the post as as secretary of health and human services. The indictment makes clear the Obama adviser is Valerie Jarrett, now an Obama White House aide.“Unless I get something real good . . . I’ll just send myself, you know what I’m saying,” Blagojevich was taped saying on Nov. 3, the day before Election Day.Blagojevich, a Democrat, added that the Senate seat: “is a . . . valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”
None of this, as Fitzgerald was careful to point out, suggests that President-Elect Obama is in any way guilty of anything; the fact that Blagojevich was trying to wrestle some sort of benefit out of him doesn’t mean that he or any of his staff were guilty of anything, and there appears to be no reason to think they were. If anything, it appears that they responded to Blagojevich’s demand for some sort of bribe by ending the conversation. That sets them apart from some of the other people Blagojevich was considering appointing to the seat, since at least one of them offered money “up front” for the job. (Update and correction: that candidate has now been confirmed to be Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), but the only evidence so far that he or any of his associates offered Blagojevitch money is the governor’s own statements, which have not been independently corroborated.)This whole fiasco certainly sheds light on the political milieu through which Barack Obama rose to power, but the real import here has nothing to do with him, but rather with his successor: with the indictment against Blagojevich, who’s going to appoint the next junior Senator from the state of Illinois?HT: Power LineUpdate: You know things are getting bad when the lolcats are laughing at you: