As with George Ryan before
him, I'm really finding it difficult to believe that Governor Rod Blagojevich
is as clueless as he claims.
Blagojevich claims he had
absolutely no idea that Tony Rezko was up to no good. Rezko is a very close
friend of the governor's who raised millions of dollars for his campaign, put
lots of people into important positions in Blagojevich's administration and was
a business partner with Mrs. Blagojevich for eight years.
Rezko was indicted last
week by the federal government for a host of corrupt activities that US
Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald termed a "pay-to-play scheme on
steroids."
The governor says he
occasionally asked Rezko about all the allegations floating around. "He
reassured me over and over again," that he was clean, Blagojevich told the
Daily Southtown's editorial board last week.
Governor Blagojevich also
told the paper that he didn't pay attention to the allegations about Rezko for
the past two and a half years because they were just "rumors."
Apparently, the governor
has absolutely no trust or interest in this state's newspapers, which have been
diligently reporting tales of Rezko's nefarious antics since at least 2004. If
the governor is telling the truth he must not have done more than skim just a
few of those dozens of stories. A closer read would have set off serious alarm
bells in any reasonable mind.
Back in July of 2004,
during the height of a campaign-year sex scandal involving Republican US Senate
candidate Jack Ryan I wrote that the "scandal of the year" was not
about sex but about some dirty state deals which allegedly involved Tony Rezko.
"The governor needs to clean up his own house," I wrote back then,
"or somebody is going to the Big House."
This was not an unusual
opinion at the time. The papers were full of stories about Rezko and have been
ever since. But the governor claims that none of it was serious enough to spur
him to action.
Here's the real kicker,
though. The Southtown also asked the governor if he was confident that Chris
Kelly, his friend, fundraiser and adviser, would never be indicted.
"Yeah. Yes. TheyÕre
two different people, by the way, and itÕs a different relationship. Chris and
I are much closer. Chris is the head of my political campaign. ThatÕs someone I
talk to a lot more frequently. IÕm confident, yes."
But Kelly plays a
significant role in the prosecutors' version of Rezko's alleged lawbreaking.
Kelly's alleged role was also highlighted in Democratic fundraiser Joe Cari's
guilty plea.
According to both the
Rezko indictment and Cari's plea, Kelly was allegedly part of a shakedown scam
designed to fatten the governor's campaign account. Kelly, who denies all
wrongdoing, is not mentioned by name, but reports and sources indicate he is
the guy that the feds were referring to.
If the US Attorney's office
is to be believed, Chris Kelly, the governor's best buddy, the head of the
governor's political campaign, the man the governor trusts more than anyone
else in politics, at the very least had a hand in some seriously corrupt
activities. Yet the governor flatly denies that Kelly is involved in any way.
Apparently, Gov.
Blagojevich has learned absolutely nothing from the Rezko indictment. People
have been trying to tell him for years that something big is rotten in his
administration and he has smiled that smile of his and insisted that he runs
the cleanest administration ever.
Our options here are: 1)
Blagojevich knows about the corruption and is a very good liar; 2) The governor
isn't curious enough to delve deeper than a headline and seriously question his
friends; 3) He is utterly incapable of trusting any information that contradicts
his own beliefs; or 4) US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is completely wrong, even
though he has yet to lose a corruption case.
Whatever the answer, the
Southtown interview pretty much proved that this governor will do next to
nothing to clean up the real problems within his administration.
The governor better hope
that Patrick Fitzgerald doesn't read that Southtown piece. Stu Levine's guilty
plea is coming up soon, and Levine was allegedly involved in a plethora of
shady dealings with the governor's people. That guilty plea will undoubtedly be
accompanied by a long and sordid narrative written by the US Attorney's office.
Fitzgerald might just decide to make Blagojevich eat those words.
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Rich Miller also publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com