From Smoking Gun via Drudge:
President-elect Barack Obama and two of his top advisers were interviewed last week by federal prosecutors probing Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s alleged bid to sell Obama’s vacated Senate seat, according to a report issued today by an Obama lawyer. The lawyer, Gregory Craig, concluded that Obama and his aides engaged in no improper conduct in connection with the Senate opening… As part of his review of transition team “contacts” with Blagojevich, Craig reported that only incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoke with the Illinois pol. Emanuel, Craig disclosed, had “one or two telephone calls” with Blagojevich in early-November. Emanuel reportedly gave Blagojevich a “heads up” that he was accepting Obama’s offer of the chief of staff job (and, as a result, would be resigning his congressional seat). Emanuel also “had a brief discussion with the Governor about the Senate seat and the merits of various people whom the Governor might consider.” Craig also noted that Emanuel had “about four telephone conversations with John Harris, Chief of Staff to the Governor, on the subject of the Senate seat. In these conversations, Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Harris discussed the merits of potential candidates and the strategic benefit that each candidate would bring to the Senate seat.” In addition to the president-elect, Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, an Obama confidante, were interviewed in the past few days by investigators with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, which, on December 9, announced criminal charges against Blagojevich and Harris.
Obama, of course, is having himself white-washed in all this – nice to have your own people do an investigation and discover – surprise, surprise, surprise! – that there was no improper contacts between Team Obama and Blagojevich. This is a preview, I guess, of how Obama’s Justice Department will deal with corruption amongst Democrat politicians.
The spreading stain of Blagojevich is something Obama needs to go away, and go away fast. Its not so much whether or not Obama, himself, had improper contacts (I’ll bet he didn’t – at least to the extent that there won’t be anything on tape or paper saying he did), but that Obama’s deep connections to the corrupt political machine which raised Blagojevich to the governorship and which made selling a Senate seat seem ok will continue to dog Obama unless there is a complete conclusion to this matter. Obama is either being ill-served by advisers who are neck-deep in Blagojevich, or is being a fool in his own right – the way out of this is to get right into it and admit error, promise complete cooperation and insist that anyone who broke the law go to jail. Having your own people pretend to clear you of wrongdoing will convince Daily Kos kooks, but not many other people.
The old saw is that its not the crime, but the cover up which causes the problem – in my view, its a bit different. Presidents, especially, are not involved in crimes unless they are really, really stupid (like Nixon) in their actions. Whatever else I may think of Obama, “stupid” doesn’t come to mind. To me, the problem is the failure to immediately admit culpability. Now, you can’t do this endlessly – no matter how sincere the apology, by the time you’re apologizing for the 20th mistake, you’re being taken for an incompetent boob. But when something really bad comes along – like a governor attempting to sell your Senate seat and there’s clear indications that your top people were talking to the guy – its time to get out in front, admit error, apologize and then be seen to be working to clear the air. The American people are understanding and forgiving – but impatient with people who try to hem and haw their way out of trouble.
Obama has already half blown this – if he keeps going on like this, then he’s going to have a vested interest in defending the indefensible (ie, anyone on his team who turns out to have been involved in actual seat-selling), and that is the recipe for ultimate political disaster. Obama can un-blow it (as it were), but time is running out.
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