This is pretty funny…
ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the consultants (Advisor B and another consultant are believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to “suck it up” for two years and do nothing and give this “motherfucker
his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him.” ROD BLAGOJEVICH states that he will put “[Senate Candidate 4]” in the Senate “before I just give fucking [Senate Candidate 1] a fucking Senate seat and I don’t get anything.” …
Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.”
I just finished reading the whole thing. Reading between the lines, it sounds like Blogojevich viewed “Senate Candidate 1” as Obama’s desired replacement for himself, and kept trying to suggest “deals” in exchange for that, but the transition staff essentially offered “only their appreciation” and was not responsive to any of the overtures. So Blagojevich and company started getting more and more upset, and throwing out other candidates they would appoint instead to piss off Obama… and of course also evaluating each of those alternate candidates by how much personal benefit they could bring to the Blagojevich family… and meanwhile still trying to construct deals on Senate Candidate 1 that would be less obvious andless directly traceable back to Obama. And of course plans to appoint himself to the seat if none of that worked out.
At least that is what it looks like. The Complaint says that what is included is only a small subset of what was recorded, and what is included does not seem to include any conversations with the transition team, only with Blagojevich and his advisors discussion options and what they wanted in exchange for what. So there might still be more not public.
But at least initially, it seems like the Obama team was doing the right thing and basically ignoring this asshole.
Anyway, the press conference on this is about to start…
[Edited 17:21 UTC to add the second quote]
1 comment to Who is Senate Candidate 1?
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Looks like Senate Candidate 1 was probably Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s advisors. The complaint identifies the gender, and mentions that she later took herself out of consideration, which would make her the only match. (via Marc Ambinder)