Federal authorities arrested Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich Tuesday on charges the allegedly tried to sell or trade the state’s US Senate seat left vacant by president-elect Barack Obama.
An FBI affidavit. taken from court-authorized FBI wiretaps, show a profanity-ridden Democrat Blagojevich bragging to his deputy governor that if “they’re not going to offer me anything of value I might as well take it.”
The affidavit says the Senate seat was going to be sold to a “Candidate 5″ – someone who had been publicly campaigning for it. Speculation indicates that “Candidate 5″ may be Jesse Jackson, Jr, something which Jackson denies. The Smoking Gun reports “Candidate 5″ is Illiois state legislator Emil Jones.
US Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement that “the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering,” adding, “They allege that Blagojevich put a for sale sign on the naming of a United States senator”.
Blagojevich is also charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Chicago Tribune owner Tribune Co., in the sale of Wrigley Field, if the paper did not fire members of its editorial board who had criticized him.
More from TRP
TRP Recommends
- Faultline USA: Obama Prepares To Talk With Iran; Israel Prepares To Attack (faultlineusa)
- Faultline USA: Will Obama Ask Biden to Step Down? (faultlineusa)
- Faultline USA: A Note to Obama Loving Israelis: Want to Trade? (faultlineusa)
Related posts:
7 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
Continuing the Discussion
You must be logged in to post a comment.