An unnamed public official
Mark Brown, at the Chicago Sun-Times, is very amused by the determined efforts of the District Judge to keep a certain unnamed public official from having to testify in the trial of Rod Blagojevich
[A] three-paragraph letter that they say was turned over to the defense by prosecutors during a recent closed-door session in the governor’s chambers, laying out new information that convicted political insider Tony Rezko allegedly has told investigators, particularly this: that Rezko said he “believed he transmitted a quid pro quo offer from a lobbyist to the public official, whereby the lobbyist would hold fund-raiser for the official in exchange for favorable official action, but that the public official rejected the offer.”
It also said the public official “denies any such conversation.”
Without flat-out naming Obama as that public official, the governor’s lawyers did everything but draw us a picture, saying Obama “is the only one who can testify as to the veracity” of Rezko’s allegations.
In other words, they’re saying Rezko reported trying to bribe Obama, and that while Rezko said Obama turned him down, Obama said it never happened.
Even if the prosecution avoids using testimony from Antoin Rezko in order to avoid deposing that particular unnamed public official, the Blagojevich defense may yet succeed in dragging Obama into the mess to testify about his own role in the negotiations over Blagojevich’s appointment of a successor to Obama’s seat in the Senate.
According to Blagojevich:
On the day before he was elected president, then-Sen. Obama personally called a union official about his desire for Blagojevich to appoint Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to replace him in the Senate, according to Blagojevich’s defense filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
Bessie
I doubt it will ever happen with the prosecution protecting the President. Patrick Fitzgerald interupted heated and presumably illegal negotiations between the Governor and potetial Senate replacements’. WHY??? Milorad was not a flight risk…There were NO statute of limitations pending…He was day’s if not weeks away from naming a predicessor and even if he did name someone they still would have to be sworn in…Which would have been a much better time for Fitz to reveal the information found in his covert investigation. THINK about it? Milorad and Rezko had been under investigation for over 8 years… WHY the very sudden urgency to arrest Milorad???
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