Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich arrested

The FBI claims to have foiled a plan by Illinois state governor Rod Blagojevich to "sell" Barack Obama's Senate seat in return for money or high-paid jobs for him and his wife, Patricia. Blagojevich - who has sole responsibility for deciding Obama's replacement as Senator - has been taken into custody after the FBI taped a series of phone conversations in which he discussed offering the Senate seat in return for a well-paid position at a non-profit organisation or a group affiliated with trade unions, according to the affidavit.

The transcripts show that on November 3, the eve of the presidential election, Blagojevich said the seat was a "fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."

On November 5, after Obama won the election, Blagojevich was recorded as saying: "I've got this thing and it's fucking golden, and uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing." He also allegedly talked about getting his wife placed on a corporate board.

US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, best known for prosecuting Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, said that Blagojevich had been on "a political corruption crime spree" that "would make Lincoln roll over in his grave". Blagojevich has also been charged with illegally threatening to block state aid to the Tribune Co, owners of the Chicago Tribune. The Governor allegedly demanded that members of the newspaper's editorial board be fired in return for financial assistance in the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago baseball park owned by the Tribune Co.

If Blagojevich is successfully prosecuted, he will become the fourth Illinois governor to go jail in only 35 years. The Illinois Republican Party has demanded that he resign immediately.

"Ah, Chicago," mused Michael Tomasky for the Guardian. "Some old traditions die hard." Other pundits, including Ben Smith of Politico, are suggesting that Obama may have known about the ongoing criminal investigation, following the decision in mid-November by Valerie Jarrett - at that stage the favourite to get her friend Obama's seat - to withdraw her name from the race. Jarrett's "abrupt withdrawal from consideration for the Senate seat suggests Obama's circle were aware," says Smith.

For John Kass on the Chigaco Tribune – which Blagojevich is alleged to have tried to censor – the whole story reflects horribly on everyone from Illinois, including Obama. People like to see the President-elect as "some pristine creature, perhaps a gentle faun of a magic forest, unstained by our grubby politics, a bedtime story for grown-ups who insist upon fairy tales," says Kass. "But now the national media may finally be forced to confront reality." Meanwhile, "Illinois isn't surprised."

As Salon's Alex Koppelman observes though, Blagojevich actually appears to have cleared Obama's name by his foul diatribes against the president-elect, picked up in the phone transcripts. It seems unlikely that if Obama's team had been playing ball, Blagojevich would have talked about giving "this motherfucker [Obama] his senator. Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him." For his part, the President-elect has only said that this is a "sad day for Illinois" and that he feels it would be inappropriate to comment further.

FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 9, 2008