Blago Home

Going through all the various reports of Gov. Blagojevich's indictment, what's staggering is how he continued his pay-for-play schemes even while knowing he was under investigation for several years. Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the case, said the same thing.

Noting that Blagojevich has been under investigation for years for pay-to-play corruption charges, Fitzgerald expressed his amazement that the activity would continue. “You might have thought in that environment, pay-to-play would have slowed down. The opposite happened. It sped up,” he said.

The “most cynical behavior” by Blagojevich pertained to his attempt to sell the open Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, Fitzgerald said:

The conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave. The governor’s own words describing the Senate seat: “It’s a [bleeping] valuable thing. You just don’t give it away for nothing.” Another quote: “I’ve got this thing and it’s [bleeping] golden. I’m just not giving it up for [bleeping] nothing. I’m not going to do it. I can always use it — I can parachute me there.”

In addition, how stupid do you have to be to try and threaten the President-elect? Do you think he doesn't have access to the feds? (The story reflects pretty well on Obama, by the way, his preferred Senate candidate Valerie Jarrett took herself out of the running as soon as these pay-to-play schemes were offered, and Rahm Emanuel may even be the whistleblower).

Blagojevich was under investigation for years. He pretty much knew he was being wiretapped. And yet he kept going. In addition, he threatened to withhold assistance from the Tribune Company if they didn't fire members of the editorial board who were hostile to him.

This is not a situation of a prosecutor targeting a Democrat. It's a prosecutor targeting a crook. And a pretty stupid one at that.

...strong suggestions that Jesse Jackson Jr. tried to play ball with Blagojevich.