Stu Levine has flipped.
Things are gonna get crazy real soon.
Levine was a mega
Republican insider with very close ties to Jim Ryan, Gov. Rod Blagojevich's
2002 opponent. Some saw fair-minded bipartisanship when Gov. Blagojevich
reappointed Levine to both the Teachers Retirement System board of directors
and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. As we soon discovered, the
appointments may have been made for entirely different reasons. And now Levine
is in a position to create some truly serious trouble for the governor.
You will recall that Joe
Cari, the former finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee, caused
quite a stir when his negotiated guilty plea was released by the feds. In that
plea Cari claimed Levine told him about a blatantly corrupt "fundraising
strategy" involving the teacher pension fund. According to Cari, Levine and
Gov. Blagojevich's two top fundraisers would refuse to allow TRS to invest in a
private equity fund unless those private firms hired a consultant of the
cabal's choosing.
The kicker was the favored
consultants would have to agree to make "certain political or charitable
contributions." The two fundraisers were identified in the media as Tony
Rezko and Chris Kelly - two of the governor's closest advisers during his first
three years in office.
But the big news was that
the Cari plea included a statement claiming Gov. Blagojevich - identified in
the plea as "Public Official A" - was "acting through"
Rezko and Kelly to choose the consultants. The governor and his two guys have
both maintained their innocence, with the governor charging that Cari's
testimony was nothing more than "triple hearsay." The governor also
denies that he is "Public Official A."
Levine was also indicted
by the feds last May for "influence peddling, kickbacks, and other corrupt
actions" involving his role as vice chairman of the Health Facilities
Planning Board. Allegations surfaced in 2004 that some Blagojevich campaign
contributors essentially purchased seats on the board for several thousand
dollars. Some of those board members were allegedly recruited by Tony Rezko.
Levine and Rezko have a personal relationship going back several years.
Because the feds have
obtained guilty pleas from some of his other co-conspirators, they have a
pretty solid cases against Levine - and this US Attorney hasn't lost a
corruption case yet - so Levine's guilty plea was not unexpected and has been
rumored for weeks. The G also has hundreds of hours of wiretap recordings of
Levine's phone conversations and, according to one columnist, he may have even
worn a wire.
If Levine and the federal
wiretaps confirm Joe Cari's allegations and/or the board seats for campaign
cash claims... well, you get the idea. Forget the "where there's smoke
there's fire" stuff. This will be a giant mushroom cloud directly over the
governor's office. Levine is scheduled to appear in court in September - right
after the unofficial start of the campaign season.
But that's not all the
troubles the governor has right now. His lawyers are currently trying to nail a
couple of whistleblowers to the wall.
The governor's office
claims that the former head of personnel for the Department of Central
Management Services, Dawn DeFraties, broke the law when she helped thousands of
politically connected state job applicants. The governor's lawyer admits that a
large number of those tainted applicants were referred by the governor's own
office, but he says DeFraties should have scolded the patronage guys for
demanding that she break the law.
This is almost an exact
copy of Robert Sorich's defense. The former patronage director for Chicago
Mayor Richard M. Daley claimed that since he only "recommended"
politically connected people for city civil service jobs and didn't actually
hire them, he wasn't guilty of breaking any laws. A federal jury disagreed and
Sorich is going to prison.
I think what's going on
here is the Blagojevich administration desperately wants a "win" in
front of the state Civil Service Commission, which is currently deciding
whether to uphold the administration's firing of DeFraties on grounds that she
was corrupt. That way, the governor can claim that his office has been
"vindicated" of all these scurrilous illegal political hiring
allegations just in time for the November election.
Politically, it might
work. But the legal maneuvering is destined to fail with federal prosecutors.
This administration is in big trouble, campers. Big, big trouble.
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Rich Miller also publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com