In addition to talking with Gov. Blagojevich about who would fill President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat, Obama’s newly minted chief of staff had something else on his mind: his own congressional seat.
Just after accepting the top post with Obama, Rahm Emanuel discussed with Blagojevich the possibility of keeping his congressional seat “warm” for him for a couple of years, the Sun-Times has learned.
Emanuel expressed interest in returning one day to his elected position because he was on track to become U.S. House speaker, the Sun-Times previously reported.
An Obama transition team report released Tuesday indicates Emanuel talked with the governor days after the election. Sources said Emanuel broached with Blagojevich the subject of finding a candidate to temporarily fill the seat. But Emanuel isn’t accused of promising something in return.
Emanuel has not yet resigned from his congressional post. When he does, his position will be filled by a special election. But there was discussion about whether Blagojevich could appoint an interim replacement, according to the criminal complaint in the governor’s case.
Days after Emanuel and Blagojevich spoke about Emanuel’s seat, the governor is overheard telling aides on secret wiretaps he wanted Emanuel “to get the word today,” about raising money for the governor and that when “[Emanuel] asks me for the Fifth CD thing, I want it to be in his head.” The “Fifth CD” was a reference to Emanuel’s 5th Congressional District seat.
Jim Lindgren at Volokh on Obama’s internal report:
The Report discloses that Valerie Jarrett was informed of Blagojevich’s interest in a cabinet position, but is silent on whether she was informed of his desire for a lucrative job with a charity. Further, the Report is silent about whether Obama himself knew of Blagojevich’s interest in a cabinet or charitable job.
Obama’s Report does not purport to be a complete list of all the contacts between his staff and emissaries for Blagojevich, only of direct contacts between the two staffs, plus two specifically disclosed indirect contacts. The Report does not indicate one way or the other whether the two contacts mentioned in the government’s affidavit by which Blagojevich intended to have his desire for a lucrative job conveyed to the Obama camp ever took place. It mentions the contacts made by people who had not (at the time of the conversations) been directed to shake down Obama, but fails to mention the two contacts (if they occurred) by people who had (according to the Government’s affidavit) been recently directed to contact Obama staffers to discuss simultaneously the Senate seat and Blagojevich’s desire for a job.
Assuming that Obama is not operating under any restrictions from Patrick Fitzgerald, when Obama returns to work in a week or so, it will be up to the press to find out from him whether the two corrupt contacts alleged in the affidavit to have been ordered by Blagojevich ever occurred and whether Obama learned before December that Blagojevich was seeking a job.
Curt at Flopping Aces has the background on Gregory Craig, Obama’s Counsel, who wrote the report.
Meanwhile, while Obama working-vacations in Hawaii (it’s important that “working” be added in the MSM so that he’s not compared with Bush), Emanuel is off to Africa. It’s a big country, that Africa, and it would have been nice if they’d been more specific about where exactly Rahm is holidaying, but they aren’t. Perhaps he’s over there on a humanitarian mission to Obama’s half brother.
OK, that is a little different from what I thought was happening. I was really rather hoping that this was just clumsiness. Now I see it is probably Mr. E wanting to not have to explain a crude and cynical stance re: “his” seat being kept for him…
Bah.
The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what’s right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what’s deep inside, frightened of this thing that Ive become
It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There’s nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
Roseanna! Roseanna!
If this is true wouldn’t a competent executive fire him? I mean the guy is going around his back supposedly giving a sitting Governor a list of people Obama wanted to be appointed to the Senate seat without Obama having ANY input at all on that list. Now we learn he wanted the Governor to “keep his seat warm” for him so he could leave Obama’s administration and then return to his old job. This makes no freakin sense. Anyone with any sense right now would fire him.
Blagojevich can’t appoint a replacement for Emmanuel; Article I, Section 2, paragraph 4 of the Constitution makes plain that a vacancy in the House (as distinct from the Senate) must be filled by special election.
It’ll be interesting to see the tape transcripts, and to find out precisely how much, ahem, gratitude Rahm-bo was willing to show Blago, in order to keep his house seat warm and awaiting his return…
This whole sense of entitlement that is implicit in this, that Rahm is God’s gift to the house and that Illinois CD 5 is his, is sickening and astounding. And the notion that he is somehow on a fasat track to be speaker? By virtue of what? Being O!s consigliari? Or Pelosi’s?
Up to this point I thought that Rahm was just clumsily covering up for his dealings on behalf of the one! But now it is seeming more clear that Rahm was up to his eyeballs in the pay-to-play casspool that is Chicago politics…
Now more than ever, I want to see Rahm go down!!!
“when Obama returns to work in a week or so, it will be up to the press to find out from him whether the two corrupt contacts alleged in the affidavit to have been ordered by Blagojevich ever occurred and whether Obama learned before December that Blagojevich was seeking a job.”
Oh, Lindgren, you’re killin’ me man; who writes your stuff, ‘cuz it’s hilarious! Like the press is going to really question Obama hard about anything. I mean, the one! has already told them through his counsel, the
honorablescandal expert Mr. Craig, that he’s not gonna talk publicly about this anymore…C’mon guys, can’t he eat his waffles!Most of the media is still carrying O!s water, like Matthews, convinced that there duty is to make this Presidency successful; after all, they dragged him across the finish line! To wit, I give you the characterization of his vacation, as pointed out by Dan; it’s a working vacation, not one of those gold-bricking derelictions of duty that Boooooosh! engaged in…
As Ric has pointed out a few times, we can only hope that some major editors will come to the realization that Democrats too can provide presidential heads for their walls and pulitzers for their writers; if only they regain some sense of journalistic ethic, and put down the water pail, pick up their notepads, start asking the hard questions, and don’t relent until those same questions are realistically, and truthfully, answered…
Sumthin’ tells me that in 2012 Rahm is still going to be in Africa.If he knows whats good for him.
Major, sir. When it comes to Illinois politicians of certain cities and counties, whenever there is a doubt, always assume something sneaky is going on. More often than not you’ll be correct.
“In a big country
dreams stay with you
like a lover’s voice
fires the mountainside…”
Only Africa isn’t a country.
Maybe Rahm-bo is in Nigeria trying to help those nice fellas get some frozen bank accounts out of the United States. One can always hope… can’t one?
Thanks for the update, Bryan.
Perhaps he’s over there on a humanitarian mission to Obama’s half brother.
The ninja thing ain’t working out, he has decided to be a pirate, I’ll bet.
1. This is all much ado about NOTHING. There is absolutely nothing in this; you’ll all end up with serious egg on your face for pushing this non-story so hard.
2. Africa is a CONTINENT, not a country, dim-wit.
Bwahahaha! Really, genius? Next thing, you’ll tell me Obama’s dad was a Luo, or something.
There is absolutely nothing in this
Care to explain why Obama lied to the press?
Thanks.
1. This is all much ado about NOTHING.
You would think that by repeating this over and over again it would change the facts of the matter, but you’d be delusional to think so. Don’t you just hate it when reality intrudes in your cult of personality!
Bob Reed wrote:
…if only they regain some sense of journalistic ethic…..
Now that’s funny stuff.
Prediction: In the next four years pigs will not fly.