21 Appropriate Conversations

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed hints that Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama’s, officially appointed on Nov. 6, Chief of Staff had a whole bunch of conversations with recently arrested, and possibly crazy, Gov. Rod Blagojevich about Obama’s vacant Senate seat, which might have been caught on tape:

Sneed hears rumbles President-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is reportedly on 21 different taped conversations by the feds — dealing with his boss’ vacant Senate seat!

In light of Obama’s statement yesterday…

President-elect Barack Obama said on Monday that an internal review confirms that no one on his staff had any “inappropriate” discussions with disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich , but he’s postponing release of the full review until next week at the request of federal prosecutors investigating Blagojevich for corruption.

“I would ask for your patience because I do not want to interfere with an ongoing investigation,” Obama said during a news conference in Chicago , which he called to formally announce his appointments to lead energy and environment policy.

we can now understand why he didn’t want reporters to waste their questions…

Stopping the reporter midsentence, Mr. Obama told him he didn’t want him to waste his time asking a question he wouldn’t answer. Mr. Obama said, as he had yesterday, that he had done a “full review” of the situation but at the request of the United States attorney, he would not comment on the matter until next week.

…and could be one of the reasons Emanuel has kept his mouth shut since the arrest.

Candidate Number 5’s Latest Wrinkle

A local Chicago ABC News affiliate is reporting that Jesse Jackson, Jr., “Candidate Number 5” in the Rod Blagojevich “Senate seat sale” scandal, not only once blew the whistle on “Hot Rod,” he also received a “courtesy call” from the Feds before Blago’s arrest in the scheme.  Since we have no information as to whether the terms, “watch your ass,” or, “you owe us big time,” were used, we have no way of knowing the nature of the Feebie’s “heads up.”  However, given that Jackson served as Obama’s national campaign co-chair, the story is being presented by the media outlet in the best possible light.  Otherwise, the blowback from Jackson’s possible complicity in the scam might blow back on The Chosen One, and we mustn’t have that.

Jackson has been fighting for his reputation since the federal complaint revealed his supporters were willing to raise money for the governor, if Jackson was appointed to the Senate.

The new information appears to support Jackson’s claim that he was not involved in a scheme to buy a U.S. Senate seat.

ABC7 has learned that since late last summer, the congressman has worked with federal prosecutors, informing on an alleged Blagojevich administration scheme two and half years earlier.

The meeting in June of 2006 at a Gold Coast hotel included Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Blagojevich fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

So, basically, the Feds have been on to Jackson for some time, one way or another.  We don’t know the nature of these “interviews,” who initiated them, and/or whether Jackson’s “cooperation” was entirely voluntary.   All we know from the article is that there have been multiple contacts:

Then last summer, weeks after Rezko was found guilty of un-related corruption, the U.S. Attorney’s Office interviewed the congressman as a possible witness against the governor in the Peotone matter.

And sources tell ABC7 that Jackson has been in regular contact with the feds and has told the government that in 2003 Blagojevich denied the congressman’s wife Sandi an appointment as Illinois lottery director because Jackson would not donate $25,000 to the governor’s campaign fund.

The article concludes, however, by pointing out that Jackson supporters might want to hold off on finagling the U.S. Attorney into publicly clearing their guy:

Jackson supporters ABC7 talked to on Monday want the U.S. attorney to give the congressman a clean bill of health so to speak.

In1998, then U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar did that for Republican gubernatorial candidate George Ryan. Ryan was eventually convicted of corruption and now sits in a federal prison.

At the very least, we now know for sure that Jackson had first hand knowledge that Blago was open to bribery.