Obama report unlikely to affect Blagojevich probe

[December 24, 2008]  CHICAGO (AP) -- A report that says President-elect Barack Obama or his staff never discussed a deal with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat is unlikely to affect a federal investigation of the governor, legal observers said Tuesday.

Attorneys not involved in the case said the report Obama's transition team released Tuesday doesn't necessarily help Blagojevich, who is quoted as saying to aides in conversations secretly recorded by the FBI that he wanted to get a Cabinet position, an ambassadorship, a high-paying job or cash for the Senate seat.

Obama's chief-of-staff pick, Rahm Emanuel, gave Blagojevich and his top aide the names of people the president-elect thought would make good senators, according to the report. But it said Emanuel didn't know Blagojevich was looking for something in return.

Blagojevich is charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to defraud the state of his honest services -- partly because he allegedly schemed to sell the seat.

The grand jury is investigating the case, and an indictment, which would specify charges, has yet to be returned.

But the governor could be indicted even if Blagojevich didn't offer the seat for sale to anyone, said Dean Polales, former chief of the special prosecutions unit in the U.S. attorney's office, adding that he spoke hypothetically and was not affiliated with the case.

"Technically, he could be charged with conspiracy under the Hobbs Act (extortion) if there's evidence of an agreement" between the governor and his aides to sell or trade the seat, Polales said. "That agreement need not be with the person he planned to sell it to or through."

The report should have no major effect on the criminal case, said Professor Leonard L. Cavise of the DePaul University College of Law.

"That's because in and of itself it doesn't suggest anything incriminating or not incriminating," Cavise said. He said the contacts that it does outline provide the U.S. attorney's office with "a little more grist for investigating."

Blagojevich's attorney, Edward M. Genson, who has said the charges against the governor largely involve talk and no action, welcomed the report.

"I've said from the beginning there was nothing inappropriate and this just corroborates what I've said," Genson said Tuesday.

The report focuses on a sliver of the case prosecutors have outlined against the governor. Blagojevich is also accused in a 76-page FBI affidavit attached to the criminal complaint of scheming to squeeze companies wanting to do business with the state for campaign contributions and kickbacks.

According to the FBI recordings, he discussed holding up millions of dollars for Children's Memorial Hospital unless the head of the hospital came up with campaign money. He also discussed holding a highway bill hostage to get campaign money.

And Blagojevich is charged in the complaint with using the economic power of his office to pressure the Chicago Tribune to fire editorial writers who were calling for his impeachment -- something that is now in progress in Springfield.

[Associated Press; By MIKE ROBINSON]

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