The report is stunning enough: “Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents on federal corruption charges.” But the criminal complaint itself, containing the detailed accusations about a myriad of calls, press leaks and conferences with advisors to “sell” the open U.S. Senate seat, is simply eye-popping. Then there was the attempted blackmail of the Chicago Tribune. (That one involved conditioning financial assistance on the firing of editorial employees who had criticized the Governor.) Read it all. Sitting down.

And then there is this tidbit about one of Big Labor’s most influential unions:

On November 12, Blagojevich spoke with SEIU Official who was in Washington. This conversation occurred about a week after Blagojevich had met with SEIU Official to discuss the Senate seat, with the understanding that the union official was an emissary to discuss Senate Candidate 1’s interest in the Senate seat. During the November 12 conversation, Blagojevich allegedly explained the non-profit organization idea to SEIU Official and said that it could help Senate Candidate 1. The union official agreed to “put that flag up and see where it goes,” although the official also had said he wasn’t certain if Senate Candidate 1 wanted the official to keep pushing her candidacy. Senate Candidate 1 eventually removed herself from consideration for the open seat.

(At a time when “card check” and the influence of Big Labor is garnering more press, this probably wasn’t what pro-labor allies wanted to see.)

There are dozens and dozens of questions, including whether any of the participants in this plot made any of the Senate candidates or the SEIU explicitly aware of the Governor’s financial motives or, worse, contacted anyone in the presidential transition team (some interesting speculation is here). The complaint is silent on these points. Marc Ambinder notes that the absence of allegations against the transition team and President-elect doesn’t quite end matters for them:

However — the transition will be called to account for all of its members’ contacts with Blagojevich, and those Obama advisers who are mentioned by pseudonym — including Valerie Jarrett — will face pressure (and the candidate’s promise of transparency) to make a public accounting. . .

The Obama team did NOT want to play ball. But this isn’t one of those Washington scandalette stories that Barack Obama descries; this is a major corruption investigation involving the man who gets to choose his replacement, an investigation that involves — but, again, does not implicate — members of his transition team.

And lastly, let’s remember that the U.S. Attorney, of course, is none other than Patrick Fitzgerald. I suspect this is only the beginning of a horrendous tale of corruption and mendacity.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 1:14 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.