Golden (53 page)

A few more names were batted back and forth, such as US Representative Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr. One person Blagojevich should not name was Emil Jones, Emanuel said, who would be an embarrassment in Washington. It was clear Emanuel and Blagojevich would have more to say about the topic. But meanwhile, Emanuel would get him the legal papers on the possible Claypool appointment.

Good, said Blagojevich, he'd take care of it.

As the days wore on, Blagojevich would have dozens more calls about the seat and what to do with it. Among them, on November 10, was a call with Scofield, where the governor for the first time wanted it communicated to Balanoff that maybe he had oversold the idea that he would never, ever, appoint Jackson Jr. It was an idea that was creeping back into his head. Obama probably wasn't going to touch Blagojevich because of Rezko, he had said, meaning he could even “get ambassador to Macedonia,” he told Bill Knapp.

Also on November 10, Blagojevich was speaking on recordings for the first time about the establishment of a 501(c)4 organization, a nonprofit that could be politically active. Blagojevich imagined one could be established as a vehicle for him. Someone wealthy, like J. B. Pritzker of one of Chicago's preeminent business families, could pump millions of dollars into one. Pritzker had already expressed interest in the Senate seat.

In additional calls with Scofield, Blagojevich talked about getting a leak into the
Sun-Times
through Michael Sneed that he had been in long talks
with Jackson Jr. about the seat, hoping to stoke the Obama people. There was no Jackson meeting, but Blagojevich wanted to try to leverage the idea of one. Things weren't moving as quickly as he wanted toward a trade for a Jarrett appointment. The truth was he could gain good will with the public by appointing any of a number of African Americans, not just Jarrett. A Jackson leak might be just the jolt he needed.

Rod and Patti Blagojevich were on the phone one more time late in the day. Jarrett just wasn't going to happen for nothing when there were other plays out there. The Obama camp wasn't giving him the respect he thought he deserved when it came to Jarrett. Now Obama was on the top of the world, and the impatient Blagojevich didn't think the presidentelect was playing ball. “How can we help you?” Blagojevich said. “There is none of that coming back.”

Blagojevich didn't care if the president of the United States was upset with him. What was he going to do, Blagojevich said, make US Attorney Pat Fitzgerald come after him more?

“How about Rita Rezko for the Senate?” Blagojevich spouted, speaking of Tony Rezko's wife. “Don't they realize I can fucking do that?”

How about the president's alleged bagman, Bruce Washington? Blagojevich went on. The guy who had taken $25,000 from Rezko's office, supposedly for the man now headed for the White House. “How about I make him the fucking senator?”

Blagojevich was losing patience, and November 11 wouldn't start much better. Harris was on the phone with the governor shortly after 9:00 A
M,
talking about Wyma probing on behalf of Emanuel about the Senate pick. Anyway, Harris had spoken to Wyma, who had told him he was passing a message from Emanuel.

“Rahm asked him to deliver the message that the presidentelect would be very pleased if you appointed Valerie and he would be, ah, ‘thankful and appreciative,'” Harris repeated. “Those are the operative words.”

“Uh huh,” Blagojevich answered. Harris hadn't gone further or described behind-the-scenes dealing, he told the governor.

“Grateful and appreciative, huh,” Blagojevich repeated, almost to himself.

“Thankful and appreciative,” Harris said, correcting him slightly. But it didn't matter. The message from Obama—which seemed to be that there would be no trade at all—didn't really sink in.

“I think a 501(c)4,” the governor said. “Can we get his friend Warren Buffet or some of those guys to help us on somethin' like that?”

One thing to think about was possibly naming Louanner Peters, another Blagojevich deputy governor, to the seat. She had always been loyal to him and was an African American. She was so loyal, Blagojevich believed he could appoint her now, and she could possibly be asked to step down at any point if Blagojevich faced impeachment. When she resigned, then he could name himself in a pinch and go through a trap door, out of Illinois.

“Well, OK, so we know he wants [Jarrett],” Blagojevich said. At least he knew that, though he seemed somewhat taken aback. “They're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them. You know what I mean? Right now Louanner's the front runner.”

The men hadn't heard back from Balanoff and speculated that maybe the Obama camp had switched messengers because they didn't like what the union boss had come back with or how the talks had gone. Maybe now it was Wyma from Emanuel. Wyma as the waterboy, Blagojevich said, which the governor found ironic since Wyma sometimes alleged that Emanuel hit on his girlfriend. At any rate, they couldn't be sure what Emanuel's motives were. The confirmed emissary was Balanoff, and they would do nothing before hearing back from him. Meanwhile, Blagojevich would put out word that Jesse Jackson Jr.'s star was rising.

Minutes later, Blagojevich was talking to Scofield and repeating the new message. But Scofield also had not heard from Balanoff or anyone else at SEIU. That's what he was waiting for now. The governor wanted to know if, when Scofield did talk to them, he could ask about a 501(c)4, the kind of organization that money could flow into and he could lead. “It's gotta be legal, obviously,” he said. If he got nothing from Obama, he was going to have to go in another direction, Blagojevich said. He could very well appoint an African American woman, but it would be Peters. Thanks and appreciation was nice, but Blagojevich and Scofield agreed Obama needed to offer something more tangible than that.

“I get to take a ride on Air Force One,” Blagojevich joked. “You know I get to maybe, maybe spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom.”

The governor was left wondering what other career path he might have taken. What if he had never run for governor and stayed in Congress? Maybe he could have run for Senate in 2004, when Obama did. Where would that have taken him? He might have beaten most contenders in the primary, but Obama probably would have nosed Blagojevich out, they agreed.

He would have lost his seat in the House, but he wouldn't have any federal investigations to worry about. He would never have had any falling-out
with his father-in-law. Yeah, Scofield answered, but if he had never been governor, a lot fewer people would have health care.

“I hope they're sittin' on the jury,” Blagojevich joked. “I hope those people with health care are sitting on the jury.”

Just after 7:30 A
M
the next day, November 12, Blagojevich was on the phone with his press agent, Lucio Guerrero, for a morning briefing. Blagojevich instructed Guerrero to work with Doug Scofield about what to say in a Sneed item about Jackson Jr. and the idea that his stock was rising with the governor.

OK, Guerrero said, but what about Valerie Jarrett?

What about her? said Blagojevich.

There were reports on CNN late the prior day reporting that sources were saying Jarrett was no longer interested in taking the Senate seat. She was probably going to be joining Obama in the White House instead. Hmmm, Blagojevich said, that was odd since he had gotten such continued hints that Jarrett wanted the seat—and that Obama wanted her there.

The information would set off a daylong flurry of calls, beginning a few minutes later with Harris, who thought the information could be a tactic. The Obama camp could be downplaying her desire to save face in case Jarrett didn't get the appointment. Or, he said, they could be firing a shot across Blagojevich's bow that the pick wasn't that important to them. Either way, it was best not to overreact, they agreed. Blagojevich should wait to hear from Balanoff or maybe send Scofield to reach back out to him. The governor was still fixated on his newest plan, to get wealthy Obama friends to find money for his issue-advocacy organization. As much as $20 million could be funneled into it. Bill Gates and people like that could each throw in a couple of million, and a board could be put together that Blagojevich liked. “Let's fund it to the level that he's asked for and then we'll get Valerie Jarrett,” Blagojevich said Obama could think, in full denial that a Jarrett pick was moving off the table.

But what if he did get the final push off? What was his next move then? Peters?

“I don't have one. I mean Jesse Jr., it's a repugnant thought to me,” Blagojevich said. “I can't believe anything he says, wh-what he's got third parties
saying to me is a heck of a lot more substantial than what we're getting from the Obama people, OK?”

Some of Blagojevich's other business that day dealt with his fund-raising. He heard from Robert, who said he had left three messages for Magoon, the leader of Children's Memorial Hospital from whom Blagojevich was looking for a donation. Blagojevich said he would go ahead and call himself. It was a few hours later when Blagojevich called Greenlee and asked about the status of the rate increase that would affect Children's Memorial. It was due to go into effect on January 1, but Blagojevich wanted to know if they still had total discretion over it and if it could be pulled back. “Budgetary concerns, right?” the governor said.

Blagojevich also had calls with advisers Yang and Knapp, with Knapp saying he had heard a stronger version of the Jarrett rumor. It was impossible to know exactly what the truth was, Knapp told the governor, suggesting it could even be that Emanuel wanted Jarrett in the Senate because he didn't want to have to deal with someone who was that close to Obama in the White House, where Emanuel was headed. At any rate, a transition team was meeting in Chicago over the midday hours to go over a bunch of things, so they agreed more might be known later. Blagojevich was still talking up the idea of the issue-advocacy group, but Knapp was trying to persuade him to possibly tough out his time leading the state. If the investigation dried up and he got things done in Illinois, he would be a lot more valuable in the private sector than he would now if he just fled the governor's office.

Well, the drying up could in fact be the outcome, Blagojevich said, as he had heard that Rezko was not cooperating. He was getting sick and tired of everyone throwing Rezko back on him, anyway.

“You know Rezko was actually, almost had Patti do the real estate deal for Obama's house,” Blagojevich said. “How do you like that?”

“Say that again?” Knapp said, seemingly stunned.

“Uh, Rezko, uh, was talking to Patti about a property, a friend of his, who was buying a house in Hyde Park,” Blagojevich said, convinced his wife had almost wound up in the arrangement.

What Blagojevich was talking about, of course, was the controversial private real estate dealings between the Obamas and Rezkos in 2005, after Obama had become a US senator. Barack and Michelle had closed on a mansion in the Kenwood neighborhood for $1.65 million, which was
well under asking price, on the same day Tony and Rita Rezko paid the full $625,000 listed price for a next-door parcel. The Rezkos then transferred a strip of their land to the Obamas for $104,500 and arranged for a $14,000 wrought iron fence on the line between the properties. The cozy deal put together while Rezko was known to be under federal investigation would haunt Obama, who called it “boneheaded,” throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, when he was also busy donating to charity tens of thousands of dollars linked to his onetime friend and political patron.

At 10:26 A
M
the same day came a call from Harris, who had heard from Rahm Emanuel. Jarrett was in fact out of the running. She was going to the White House, so there would be no trading for anything for her appointment. Obama supposedly had four names he would find acceptable from that point, in no particular order, Emanuel had said. They were Jackson Jr.; Jan Schakowsky; Tammy Duckworth, a disabled Iraq War veteran who was born in Bangkok, Thailand, and had made a losing bid for Congress; and Dan Hynes, Illinois's comptroller who lost to Obama in the Senate primary in 2004. That was it, and Emanuel said he was to be the only go-between on the issue, meaning Balanoff was out of the picture, too.