Golden (73 page)

Defense lawyers tried to soften the blow by having Magoon say that nothing overt was said by anyone connecting the fund-raising to the promise of
financial help for Children's Memorial. Robert Blagojevich hadn't threatened him, he agreed. The lawyers also pointed out that the hospital eventually got its rate increase, although it was after the governor was arrested.

The testimony had hit at one of the core values Blagojevich always trumpeted at public appearances and during his campaigns—health care for children. Apparently, not even that was sacred when it came to Blagojevich's desire to stuff his campaign coffers. But he was in a good mood as he left the Dirksen US Courthouse that day. It was July 13, just six weeks after the trial had started. Prosecutors had rested their case a month earlier than some estimates and had done so without calling to the stand key players in the alleged corruption, such as Stuart Levine or Tony Rezko.

But that wasn't on the former governor's mind as he waved to TV cameras and shook his hands on his way to a waiting car.

“I can't wait to testify,” he said.

Julie and Robert Blagojevich went together like jelly and peanut butter. She was the sweet, supportive wife who was the perfect accent to her steadfast husband, the center of their family. Robert was a well-spoken military veteran who wore his pride on his sleeve, certainly smart enough to run a real estate investing business and have enough success to be able to take a few months to go to Chicago from Nashville to help his brother's campaign operation in a pinch. He had a calm, reasoned demeanor. Rod's sane brother, in other words.

Julie testified first, looking wide-eyed and seemingly wishing she could be just about anywhere else on earth. It was her job to help tell the jury Robert wasn't some power-hungry moneygrabber who just wanted to capitalize on his brother being governor.

It was the summer of 2008 when the request came. Julie said she remembered spending the Fourth of July holiday at the home of her brother-in-law, the governor, who took her husband aside during a backyard party and asked him to lead his campaign fund for a while, or at least until the end of that year.

“He was reluctant to do it,” she said. “His life was in Nashville. His business was elsewhere.”

But Julie said she thought it was important for her husband to fully consider it. The brothers' mother, before she died, had told them to always help
each other. Robert's main source of income was the ownership of rental apartment buildings in Tennessee, so he didn't necessarily have to stay home. The brothers were living busy lives in separate cities, so Julie said she saw the post as a chance for them to grow closer.

“I told him I thought he should do it,” Julie said, with more than a hint of regret in her voice. Her timidity made her seem genuine about the situation, like she realized it probably had been her wifely nudge that had brought this situation on her family.

Julie said it was her view that her husband shouldn't take a salary, because taking money for the job would create the air of nepotism about it and could reflect poorly on Rod in the Chicago press. It was no secret that Rod Blagojevich and his wife had investigations swirling around them, and Julie told the jury that was her one concern before giving her final blessing to a job that would see her husband working for his high-profile brother and coming home to Nashville every ten days or so to see her. She said she and her husband had dinner with Rod and Patti to talk things out, and when it was through, everyone was comfortable.

“To the best of their knowledge, the federal investigation was behind them,” Julie said.

Robert sat on the witness stand like he had a broomstick up the back of his shirt. He had spent months preparing to testify, and right away it seemed to pay off. He was clearly ready to go through his story with his lawyer, Ettinger, and explain how he had gone from a respected businessman in Nashville to federal defendant in Chicago in just five months in 2008. He rattled off the details of his college and army careers in a calm, clear voice and, not surprisingly, agreed with his wife about how he and his brother, who had once been “tied at the hip,” had been pushed apart by their separate lives. “He was legal, political. I was military, business,” he said. “We drifted.”

And the fund-raising job was seen as a possible way for him and his brother to get to spend some significant time together. He wasn't even a Democrat; he was a hardcore Republican whose only fund-raising experience was in the charitable world, Robert explained. He had raised money for the likes of the Red Cross, but trying to stuff a campaign coffer would be a completely new experience, he remembered, and he knew he would be a novice going in. His only prior experience in the arena had been during the runup to his brother's
reelection in 2006, but that had just been helping place campaign signs and calling a few people who already had donated in 2002. Robert worked a few months, his brother won reelection, and he went home to Tennessee.

In 2008, it was different. The governor's close ring had been chipped away by the federal government, and Blagojevich had few people he believed he could trust. One of them was Robert, so he asked his brother to come and run his campaign fund. Flattered, Robert accepted, and he told the jury that to him, the rules were always clear. You were never to tie a fund-raising request to official state action, and Robert was convinced he never had. He had made calls to people like Magoon, from Children's Memorial Hospital, but those requests were not linked in his mind to the fact they had something pending that the governor was considering. Robert said his brother's talks about the rate increase for the hospital were outside his presence, so he didn't even know about the proposal when he spoke to Magoon that fall.

Likewise, Robert said his conscience was clear when it came to more questionable conversations he'd had with his brother. It was Robert who had been told to reach out to Nayak in December 2008 when Blagojevich was thinking about increasing Jesse Jackson Jr.'s chances. Robert said he thought his brother was most interested in Lisa Madigan's appointment and his ability to possibly break the logjam in Springfield in a deal with her father. The Jackson choice, and the offer of money, had been viewed by the brothers as an outrageous joke, Robert said.

When Rod sent him to see Nayak, he wasn't even exactly sure what he was going to say.

“I'm not sure other than to talk to Raghu Nayak about the elevation of Jesse Jackson Jr.,” Robert said, adding he wasn't going to bring up fund-raising. “I wasn't following exactly what he wanted me to do.”

The governor had told him to be careful about how he approached the discussion, but Robert had an innocent answer for that, too. It just meant to be careful not to mix fund-raising and the seat. But how about when the governor had talked about getting something tangible and getting it up front from the Jackson people? Robert simply said he wasn't exactly sure what that was about.

“But I know it had nothing to do with that [fund-raising] approach because that was a dead issue,” Robert said. He had killed that already. There were tapes of Robert telling members of the Indian community that money wouldn't be a factor and that his brother would do what was good for the state.

It was the same thing Robert told Chris Niewoehner, who cross-examined him. But Niewoehner was armed with tapes that made it sound like Robert had been right there when his brother was considering what he could get for a Senate appointment.

“So the question is what horse trading do you do?” Robert said on one call. Blagojevich was thinking of naming Jarrett to the seat, so, what did Robert think his brother could get for that?

“I used it in the context of just what politicians do,” Robert said. He was just talking as a concerned brother.

That didn't mean Obama would illegally kill the criminal probe, Robert said. The president might stop the investigation “if it were proper,” Robert said. “He's got laywers and advisers around him. I'm not telling him to go one off and do something illegal.”

That led Niewoehner to ask another hypothetical question. What about if someone put a bag of money in front of Blagojevich and asked for a favor, like the situation Ata had described? Robert was playing a guy who clung to the straight and narrow, so how about that question?

“He'd tell that guy to pick up the money and walk right out with it,” Robert said, not backing down. Nearby, Rod was looking on with admiration as his brother defended him.

When Niewoehner began playing tapes of the brothers talking about this or that job Blagojevich might get for the Senate seat, Robert did well. He was calm enough that he could have passed a lie-detector test on some answers and sternly resistant on others. Tapes of Rod talking about getting appointed to the Health and Human Services post were innocent enough to him.

“If he had said he wanted to be secretary of defense, I would have laughed at him,” Robert said. “Call it what you like. It's two politicians or their representatives trying to work up a political deal.”

When Blagojevich was taped talking about politician Blair Hull being named to the Senate, the governor had talked about a $100,000 campaign contribution being sought from him. Niewoehner asked whether that was a conversation about power and reward. That was no political deal.

“If John McCain won, your brother wouldn't have had an appointment to make, would he?” Niewoehner asked.

“No. I wish that would have happened,” Robert answered.

Robert repeatedly said that in his view, offers of money from Jackson's supporters in the Indian community were completely wrong. He had done
what he could to insulate his brother from some of those offers, he said, finally acknowledging that yes, at times he did pass on the information. But it was more like “field operations” and less like telling the governor something that he might jump to take. “I didn't want him stepping on land mines,” Robert said. “I wanted him to be aware there were people who had these objectives. He needed to know that there was a danger there.”

Robert testified that he thought the Indian community was clumsy in its approach on behalf of Jackson. One of the early attempts came during the Halloween fundraiser, when Nayak made an offer of up to $6 million if Jackson could get the seat. Robert said he simply told Nayak that wasn't happening and didn't bother to pass on the amount that was higher than the $1.5 million that had been floating around. It was another land mine, Robert agreed, but one from a likable exaggerator that didn't merit bothering the governor over. Robert said he had made it loud and clear that no offer like that would be accepted, and he had moved on. Nayak's boasting often fell short of the promised marks, Robert said. For example, he promised to bring a friend who was a billionaire to the fundraiser the weekend before Blagojevich's arrest. And despite all the big talk, the friend had written a check for about $10,000. Not small potatoes, but not exactly a check of the caliber Nayak had hinted at.

“I know it wasn't for $6 million,” Robert said.