Today is Friday, 22nd November 2024

IL: Blago Looking for an Escape

From WJBDRadio.com:

Rod Blagojevich wanted out of Illinois in November 2008, and with the door closing on his opportunity to fill Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, he sought escape through organized labor.

Tapes obtained through FBI wiretaps show an increasingly desperate Blagojevich grasping at straws, as he tried to allegedly cash in on the Senate seat left open by then-president elect Obama. “(Obama’s) gonna resign on Tuesday or Wednesday and they’re gonna start putting pressure (to fill the seat),” Blagojevich told his Chief of Staff John Harris on Nov. 7. Obama resigned from the Senate nine days later.

As the pressure to appoint Obama’s friend Valerie Jarrett to the seat mounted, Blagojevich’s demands shrunk. He began floating ideas about a move to the private sector with the help of his supporters in organized labor, rather than a top cabinet post in the administration. This came as a relief to Harris, who had previously warned Blagojevich he may be reaching too high. “I always thought his future lied somewhere in organized labor,” Harris testified on Wednesday during Blagojevich’s federal corruption trial.

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