Golden (52 page)

“He may want to get out of Chicago politics, but I subscribe to the view misery loves company,” Blagojevich said. Jarrett had a lot of influence with Obama, and the seat was hers to win or lose.

“So she's holding Health and Human Services, and I'm holding a US Senate seat. OK?” Blagojevich said. “She's holding hers with two hands, just kinda clinging to, you know, little pieces of it. Me, I've got the whole thing wrapped around my arms, mine, OK? I'm willing to trade the thing I got tightly held, to her for something she doesn't hold quite as tightly.”

Again, prosecutors noted the gravity of what Blagojevich had said. They were aware of the Balanoff meeting but had not recorded it. What they captured in the call was Blagojevich summarizing for them what had taken place and reporting that he had in fact told Balanoff that he would trade the Senate seat if he could be named to a cabinet post. It was self-dealing, and the remark escalated the situation. No more were they recording Blagojevich theorizing about what he should ask for or what he could get. He had done it. He had passed the message to someone he believed was speaking for Obama.

Late in the afternoon of November 7, Blagojevich had a long talk with Harris and another of his Washington, DC, advisers, Democratic pollster Fred Yang. Blagojevich and Harris brought Yang up to date with what was going on. The governor had delivered the message that Jarrett could be a senator if he could be given HHS, he said, and had also told Balanoff that if he were cornered and felt he had “no other option” for filling the seat, he would just send himself. Blagojevich had even had things checked out and learned that
some senators had their wives become lobbyists in Washington while they served.

Exactly what having “no other option” meant was unclear, but Blagojevich tried to explain. It seemed to mean not having an option that would mean something good for him. The idea was to solve his family's financial issues and get something that would give him a political future. Leading something like Change to Win would pay him a handsome salary and give him a national platform on an issue. Something that didn't pay well was relatively useless to him. “I wanna make money,” he said. Men like Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon had done work in the private sector during their “wilderness years,” Blagojevich said, and later returned to the national stage.

Harris liked the plan to work a deal with Obama that would see him get Jarrett as a senator and land Blagojevich at Change to Win through the union in a position that might even be created just for him. It wasn't a direct trade that could put pressure on Obama, the men agreed, likening it to a three-way baseball trade.

“It gives Barack the ability to stay out of Illinois politics,” Harris explained to Yang. It was easier for Obama to do something indirect. “‘Cause he's got a buffer. So there's no obvious quid pro quo for Valerie.”

On November 10, a few days later, there was another long conference call on the situation, where this time Blagojevich and Yang were joined by Blagojevich's other adviser in the capital, Bill Knapp, as well as Quinlan, strategist Doug Sosnik, and Patti. Blagojevich told the group he had done a lot in politics but it was time to think about his future. Obama had made it tough for him to make another quantum leap up, so it might be time to take a step back and make some money. He had college to consider for Amy in a few years. Knapp warned that making himself a senator would turn him into a national joke. That wasn't the kind of launching pad Blagojevich was thinking of for the next stage of his life, throwing him directly into the history books for all the wrong reasons.

“Don't worry about it. I hear ya,” Blagojevich said. “Fuck.”

The storyline on CNN and everywhere else was that Obama wanted Jarrett in the Senate, Knapp said, and it would probably be in Blagojevich's best interests, now and in the future, to fall in line and make that happen. That's where the momentum was going, so it probably wasn't smart to do anything other than fulfill Obama's wishes, unless there was some major reason in Blagojevich's self-interest not to. And that simply hadn't emerged in any clear way. What he could do, Knapp said, was use the Madigan problem and
possible Lisa Madigan solution as a “stalking horse” to get as much consideration as possible from Obama.

“Well, that's right,” Blagojevich said. “That's what we're doing.”

So that left the question of what to get. Blagojevich said he had made his HHS request but knew that was likely to be a nonstarter. Knapp agreed the post was highly unlikely.

“You don't believe I can be ambassador to India?” Blagojevich asked.

“No,” said Knapp. And ambassador to Russia, same answer. “The Rezko thing is this cloud that's gonna prevent this. I mean he's not gonna trade Valerie for his reputation. Presidents don't do that. You know what I'm saying?”

Quinlan piped up that maybe Obama could get Patti installed on some corporate boards somewhere, you know, so it wouldn't really look like one thing for the other. But Knapp wasn't super excited about that either. With Patti not really being a known business person, it could look weird.

Patti noted she had been a realtor and appraiser, and she thought there was a congressman's or ex-governor's wife on the board of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The housing crisis didn't make that the place to be, though, and Knapp noted it also made it a place of intense scrutiny.

To Knapp, the question was what Obama could do to help Blagojevich out in a couple of years when his term as governor expired. But for Blagojevich, that just wasn't good enough. They were struggling now, he said.

“It's no good. I gotta get moving. The whole world's passing me by, and I'm stuck in this fucking job as governor now,” Blagojevich said. Factors like the
Tribune
writing about all of Patti's real estate clients were making it harder and harder for the family to earn a living.

“I mean, you guys are telling me I just gotta suck it up for two years and do nothing,” Blagojevich said. “Give this motherfucker his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him.”

Obama wasn't just going to get to publicly pretend he didn't want anyone in particular, while Blagojevich made a pick that would do nothing for him—even politically—or worse yet make people upset with him. Maybe he would just appoint Jesse Jackson Jr., which seemed to be the one thing no one around Obama wanted.

“That would be revenge,” Knapp agreed, laughing.

There had to be a way to figure something out. Michelle Obama was on corporate boards. Patti was qualified. Maybe she should have just gone into nonprofit work from the beginning. Then she wouldn't be dealing with what was happening to her now.

“And then I have a personal issue, which is, I feel like I'm fucking my children,” Blagojevich said. “That's what I feel like. The whole world's passing me by, I'm stuck in this fucking gridlock for two more fucking years, OK, and nasty fucking shitty fucking press and everything, you know, and every asshole out there. We know few friends.”

The advisers—Yang, Knapp, and Sosnik—seemed to mostly agree. The best play was probably to just appoint the person Obama wanted, Jarrett. Blagojevich would get the benefit of boosting his legacy by naming a qualified African American woman to the Senate and would build up good will with a popular president who was from his home state. The move could somehow pay off down the road. Don't stick your finger in the eye of the next president, is how Sosnik put it. Wait and see what could come for you later if you do what Obama wants.

But it was Patti who said the Blagojeviches were already past the good-will-for-nothing point. They'd already asked. The governor had sent the message that he wanted to be the next Tommy Thompson.

“I don't think you live your life hoping that somebody's gonna help you down the line,” Patti said. “That's a bunch of baloney.”

At the FBI's listening room, there continued to be a mixture of thrilled disbelief and newfound resolve at what was being caught on the recordings. Agents believed they were capturing the sitting governor in incriminating conversations, and they played the calls for supervisors.

At one point, the FBI's national director, Robert Mueller, was in town for a Chicago event. Having heard about the success of the Blagojevich operation, Mueller wanted to hear some of the recordings for himself. He stopped at the FBI's Chicago headquarters on Roosevelt Road on the West Side near Ogden Avenue and took a seat in Rob Grant's office. Agents had put together a disc of some of their favorite snippets for Mueller to hear.

Who was the guy dropping the F-bombs? Mueller asked.

Well, that was the governor of Illinois, agents explained.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Mueller said, shaking his head, clearly pleased with how investigators were doing.

Blagojevich, of course, was juggling multiple issues throughout the fall of 2008. Not only the Senate seat and his own fund-raising attempts, but also other fallout from Obama's election. Rahm Emanuel was leaving his seat in
Congress to be White House chief of staff. But Emanuel wanted to leave his future options open as well, including coming back to his seat in the Fifth Congressional District. He didn't know then that Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley would be announcing his retirement in less than two years, opening up the way for Emanuel to take a dream job and lead the city as its new mayor.

Emanuel began putting out feelers to talk directly with the governor, with Blagojevich imagining one topic for Emanuel would have been to try to discourage the governor's sister-in-law, Deb Mell, from making a run for the seat. What Emanuel wanted was someone who could be named to the seat with the understanding of it being temporary. Someone could be a placeholder and step back out of the way if Emanuel wanted to go back to Congress. The Constitution called for a special election to be held for a replacement, but Emanuel was looking for a loophole.

Emanuel and Blagojevich finally spoke on November 8. Blagojevich was at home when he made the call and got connected, asking Emanuel how he was.

“All right, buddy,” Emanuel said. “How you doing?”

After the pleasantries, Emanuel cut to the chase.

“My guys are looking at this, and I got to get the final legal document, but in the meantime you should know, bizarrely, in my interest of, uh, you know, having somebody there that doesn't want to make it a lifetime commitment,” he said.

And Emanuel had someone in mind. Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool was interested in serving for one or two terms and then going to the cabinet. That seemed fine, but the problem, Blagojevich said, was he didn't have the power to appoint anyone.

Emanuel said that was wrong. It had been researched. If he stepped down in mid-December, just weeks before the swearing in of the next Congress, it would be too fast to have a special election called. It wouldn't make Claypool a US representative for good, but it would give him a three-week head start on the special election that would have to follow. Claypool had a name already, so the appointment would give him both that head start “and a presumption,” Emanuel said. This conversation should stay between them.

“And I will not forget this. And I appreciate it,” Emanuel said. “And that's all I am going to say. You and I shouldn't go farther.”

Was Daley going to help Emanuel with this situation? Blagojevich wanted to know. The congressman and the mayor had a long history together.
Emanuel had been a Daley fundraiser, and Daley's political muscle had been called into action to help Emanuel get elected to Congress. Rich, as Emanuel called him, wasn't crazy about Forrest, but it would work out.

“So what are you doing on this Senate thing?” Emanuel said. “Are you really playing with Lisa?”

They would have to talk more in the future, but yes, Blagojevich said. It was something that might make sense politically.

Well, let him say one thing about Valerie Jarrett, Emanuel answered, bringing up that name, as both men seemed to dance around the topic. There was a housing crisis in America, and Jarrett, aside from being an African American woman, knew something about the housing market. She had been CEO of a real estate development firm.