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Faced With The Blagojevich Scandal, Did Barack Obama Tell The Whole Truth?

zimmer

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Just weeks after President Obama won the 2008 election, the governor of Illinois was charged with trying to sell Obama's old Senate seat. It was an early challenge for the then president-elect, and he responded in a grand gesture of transparency. He asked Greg Craig, his future White House Counsel, to investigate “any staff contacts or communications” with Governor Rod Blagojevich's office. Less than two weeks later, Craig released a public report, which purported to remove any lingering doubt about the President's involvement in the matter. It read in part:

The President-Elect had no contact or communication with Governor Blagojevich or members of his staff about the Senate seat. In various conversations with transition staff and others, the President-Elect expressed his preference that Valerie Jarrett work with him in the White House. He also stated that he would neither stand in her way if she wanted to pursue the Senate seat nor actively seek to have her or any other particular candidate appointed to the vacancy.

This all seemed rather open and shut. Since the press had no information suggesting otherwise, President Obama was allowed to move on from the scandal. But recent testimony in the Blagojevich trial suggests that Craig's report and Obama's effort at transparency failed to tell the entire story.

On Tuesday, an Illinois union leader, Thomas Balanoff, testified that he received a phone call the day before the election from President Obama to discuss Valerie Jarrett and the Senate seat. Balanoff would serve as a go-between, connecting the Obama inner circle to the Blagojevich inner circle.

The Chicago Sun-Time's excellent “Blago Blog” summarizes Balanoff's testimony:

"Tom, I want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat," Obama told him. 
Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010. Obama said he wasn't publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill. "I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria," Balanoff said Obama told him. "I said: 'thank you, I'm going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich."
...

Now, it is true, according to this testimony, that Obama never explicitly recommends Jarrett for the job. But it is also true that Balanoff understood the conversation to be, effectively, a recommendation

Read more: Faced With The Blagojevich Scandal, Did Barack Obama Tell The Whole Truth? - Swampland - TIME.com

So far it seems he understood the game and played it with Blago, unlike their foul-up with Sestak.

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Essentially, how is this any different than Watergate.....other than the fact that the mainstream media is ignoring it?
 
So far it seems he understood the game and played it with Blago, unlike their foul-up with Sestak.

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saying he believed she would fit the bill in no way means he recommended her. that is YOUR spin. ridiculous.
 
Essentially, how is this any different than Watergate.....other than the fact that the mainstream media is ignoring it?

who broke into what here?
 
who broke into what here?

Nixon didn't personally break into anything either.

This is all about political pay-to-play Chicago chicanery, and it's catching up with them, particularly Rahm and Obama.
 
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