More Democrat Scandal

The Democrat Governor of Illinois has been arrested for attempting to sell Obama's Senate seat:

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were arrested Tuesday morning in Chicago on two counts each of federal corruption charges stemming from allegations Blagojevich was trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.

The arrest is part of a three-year probe of "pay-to-play politics" in the governor's administration. The criminal complaint by the FBI says each man was arrested on two charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. 

The charges also relate to allegations that Blagojevich and Harris schemed with previously convicted defendants and Obama associates Antoin Rezko, Stuart Levine, Ali Ata and others to arrange financial benefits in exchange for appointments to state boards and commissions, state employment, state contracts and access to state funds.

A statement by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Robert Grant said Blagojevich and Harris "allegedly conspired to sell U.S. Senate appointment, engaged in pay-to-play schemes and threatened to withhold state assistance to Tribune Company for Wrigley Field to induce purge of newspaper editorial writers."

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," Fitzgerald said in a statement. 

"Blagojevich put a for sale sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism," he added.

Grant noted that Blagojevich was elected in 2002 after Illinois Gov. George Ryan retired in the face of federal corruption charges. He was convicted and sentenced in 2006 to six and a half years in prison.

"Many, including myself, thought that the recent conviction of a former governor would usher in a new era of honesty and reform in Illinois politics. Clearly, the charges announced today reveal that the office of the Governor has become nothing more than a vehicle for self-enrichment, unrestricted by party affiliation and taking Illinois politics to a new low," Grant said.

Federal authorities were permitted by a judge to record the governor secretly before the November election after raising concerns that a replacement for Obama would be tainted.

Chicago Politics at its finest - two Governors in a row are up to their eyeballs in illegal activity.  Is it any wonder Obama himself has been tainted?  You may recall that Patrick Fitzgerald was the bulldog prosecutor who eventually persuaded a jury to convict Scooter Libby of a crime he hadn't even been charged with.  We already know there's been some rumor of Rezko dishing information that may include Obama, and if what I've read about Fitzgerald is correct (and this track record indicates it is), things could get real interesting.  Hillbuzz adds the following analysis:

If special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has enough on him, through leaning on Tony Rezko and others here in Illinois, Fitzgerald will now lean on Blagojevich to give up Obama.

Everything from Obama's land deal with Tony Rezko to the $10,000 bribe he took from Yesse Yehudah to divert state grants to "charities" Yehudah controlled could be brought up — in addition to whatever else Blagojevich knows.

Obama could become the first president ever taken into custody.

I'm not sure I would count on that, but I suppose the possibility is there. 

Also:

It looks like Governor Blagojevich told Obama that he could pick his own Senate replacement if Obama would make Blagojevich, among other things, Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

Federal prosecutors have these overtures on tape. 

If anyone on the Obama transition team said they would even CONSIDER this scheme, then someone in the Obama Nation is going to jail for this too.

Hope!

Change!

New Kind of Politics!

I bet one of Obama's first actions on January 20th is to give himself a pre-emptive pardon.  That begs the obvious question, then, of how legally binding a Presidential pardon is when it is written on one's own behalf?  The contortions could be immensely fun to watch, though it would really make a laughingstock of the once-honored Presidency.  What Nixon began and Clinton amplified, Obama would finish with flair.

There's my two cents.