In his March 12, 2010, interview with FOX News’ Greta van Susteren, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich described a conversation he said he had with Rahm Emanuel concerning a replacement for Obama’s Senate seat. His comments on that subject are within 1:09-3.29 of this video.
Blago’s words came in the context of discussing former Congressman Eric Massa’s allegation that Emanuel lobbied him in a shower while both men were naked. Suggesting this episode displayed Emanuel’s tactics, Blagojevich said,
I chose Rahm Emanuel. He was my first choice to help us pick a United States Senator. I wanted him to make a deal with the Democratic House Speaker here in Illinois. In exchange for me appointing his daughter he would stop blocking a public works bill that would create jobs. He would stop blocking healthcare expansion for fifty to three-hundred thousand people. And a written promise not to raise taxes on people. Rahm was the guy I chose to make that deal happen. And was about to do it and then everything changed when they came and arrested me.
The Illinois House Speaker in Illinois is Michael J. Madigan. He’s been Speaker since 1982, and chair of the Illinois Democratic Party since 1998. Here’s some of what the Chicago Tribune knows about him:
Madigan & Getzendanner has become a go-to firm in Chicago’s lucrative field of commercial property tax appeals. In 2008 it represented 45 of the 150 most valuable downtown buildings, based on values set by the last complete city reassessment in 2006, according to public records. That’s more than twice what the closest rival represented…
The client list for Madigan & Getzendanner includes some of the most prestigious skyscrapers in Chicago’s famous skyline — from the John Hancock Center on Michigan Avenue to the Prudential Plaza towers across from Millennium Park.
In 2006, the last reassessment year in which full statistics are available, Madigan’s firm won enough appeals to cut more than $183 million from the taxable value of the top high-rises it represented, the Tribune examination shows. Most of that success was at the Board of Review, where Madigan ally Berrios is one of three elected members.
So Madigan has major-league clout in Illinois. Mayor Daley owns City Hall in Chicago. The Speaker owns the Capital in Springfield, but his influence covers the entire state. It’s a simpatico arrangement between His Honor and Mister Speaker.
The current Attorney General (AG) of Illinois is Lisa Madigan, the Speaker’s 43-years old daughter. She was first elected AG in 2002, after serving in the Illinois Senate with Obama.
After Blago was arrested on December 9, 2008, Ms. Madigan unsuccessfully filed a motion with the SCOTUS on December 12 asking the Court to temporarily remove Blago from office. Then, on December 30, Blago stuck his thumb in the Machine’s collective eye and appointed a former Illinois AG, Roland Burris, to Obama’s Senate seat.
Ms. Madigan’s up for re-election in 2010. Widely speculated to have been the most favored Democrat candidate for Obama’s old Senate seat, she chose not to run in the recent Democrat primary race. Why?
Last January, Big Journalism posted a review of the three leading Democrat candidates for Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. It was a weak field; it didn’t take a crystal ball to identify Alexi Giannoulias as the favored Machine candidate and likely winner.
Unfortunately for Alexi, a week before the early February primary election, the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation Division of Banking in Springfield, in conjunction with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington, D.C., issued a 28-pages Consent Order directing the Giannoulias family bank, Broadway Bank, to put its business in order.
It doesn’t look good for a Senatorial candidate, particularly one who is the Treasurer of a state facing financial difficulties, to have his family bank charged with…
- …unsafe or unsound banking practices and violations of law, rule, or regulation alleged to have been committed by the Bank.
The Tribune editorial board sat down with Giannoulias on March 3 to discuss his business dealings:
• What about loans to allegedly unsavory characters?
The candidate became intense when questioned about Broadway’s loans to organized crime figures such as Michael “Jaws” Giorango and to convicted influence peddler Antoin “Tony” Rezko, connections he clearly regards as politically poisonous. He insisted the bank did due diligence on their applications and deemed the loans credit-worthy, but said banks generally don’t perform criminal background checks on potential borrowers.
He also said he doesn’t know how Giorango or Rezko came to be customers. “It’s tough to ask my father questions,” he said, underscoring the most unsatisfying theme of both the interview and his campaign: When the family bank was flying high and Giannoulias had his eye on the treasurer’s office, he was the senior loan officer, but when the tough decisions were made or the questionable characters came to call, it was almost always Alexi’s day to empty the wastebaskets.
So, how long will it be before Alexi Giannoulias gets a call, if he hasn’t already, from his basketball friend the President and is told to remove himself from the race?
And how long after that will it be before Ms. Madigan is selected by the Illinois Democratic Party, chaired by her father, to be the replacement candidate – after not having faced opposition in a contentious primary race and with plenty of campaign money still available?
And then, how long will it take after Ms. Madigan announces her senatorial candidacy for the Machine tabs David Hoffman, former Inspector General of the City of Chicago (2005-2009) who lost to Alexi, to replace Ms. Madigan as the Democratic candidate for AG?
All as Alexi gets thrown under the bus.
If all that happens, the question that the MSM won’t think to ask is this: Was this bait-n-switch in the works from the get-go?
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