CHICAGO, July 14 (Reuters) - Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, accused of conspiring to sell his office and barter President Barack Obama's old Senate seat, will try to persuade jurors in the defense phase of his corruption trial next week he was only engaging in politics as usual.
t’s an open question whether the tarring of Illinois’ political culture — the state’s last two governors have been charged with corruption — will rub off on President Obama and those of his senior staff who call Chicago home.
Blagojevich has promised to testify when the defense begins presenting its case on Monday. The prosecution concluded its case on Tuesday. His lawyers have said they plan to call to the stand White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The judge denied the defense’s request to have Obama testify.
The defense could focus on discrepancies in the results of an internal investigation that absolved the nascent Obama administration of any improper contacts with Blagojevich before he was arrested in December 2008.
There is a question "whether the White House investigation was playing fast and loose with words, or was just wrong, or whether there’s some explanation," said Ron Allen, a professor of law at Northwestern University.
A union official testified for prosecutors that he acted as an emissary, discussing with Obama on election night in 2008 the possibility of Jarrett being named by Blagojevich to the Senate seat, but Obama wanted her to work in the White House. Obama never offered anything to Blagojevich, the union official said, and Jarrett later withdrew from consideration.
"Politically, it’s dangerous for everyone involved," said Roosevelt University political scientist Paul Green. "Leaving out the language, a lot of this is politics as usual, but you’re dealing with such an extraordinary case … "
Over the past six weeks, prosecution witnesses who worked for the two-term Illinois Democrat, sought state business or investigated Blagojevich portrayed him as angry, resentful, lazy, spendthrift and willing to compromise his office for money.
Prosecutors introduced tape-recorded conversations with the then-governor telling aides to demand campaign contributions in exchange for his signature on legislation.
OVERSHADOWED BY OBAMA
"The evidence is so overwhelming on a number of the counts and the tapes are so damning that it’s difficult to imagine what a compelling explanation could be, but we’re going to have to wait and see," said Allen.
Blagojevich was heard on the tapes pining for a Cabinet post, an ambassadorship or campaign cash in exchange for naming Jarrett or others as Senator. Frustrated, he weighed naming himself or talk show host Oprah Winfrey to the Senate.
On another tape played in court, Blagojevich cursed Obama, blaming Obama’s swift rise from the Illinois state legislature for overshadowing his own political career.
Among the 24 counts of bribery, conspiracy, racketeering and lying to investigators lodged against him are charges that he sought to extort a children’s hospital administrator.
Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, was recorded profanely urging state aid to the Tribune Co be withheld until the Chicago newspaper fired editorial writers critical of her husband.
A tax expert testified the couple spent $400,000 on clothes, including expensive suits and ties for Blagojevich, who complained to aides he did not make enough money to send his daughters to college.
Another aide testified Blagojevich spent little time in the office, was often distracted and hid in his office bathroom to escape his budget director and avoid hearing bad news.
The defense aims to show Blagojevich never received anything for Obama’s vacated Senate seat, and signed legislation without getting the campaign contributions he sought, legal experts said.
"Money didn’t change hands, he ultimately didn’t sell the Senate seat," said Ron Safer, a former prosecutor who is a criminal defense attorney in Chicago. "But at the end of the case, the jury will be instructed that none of that matters. They will be instructed that an attempt (to pressure campaign donors) is a crime. A crime needn’t be completed."
"What (Blagojevich will) say is this is the way I process thought. I think aloud and then I go and toss out what doesn’t work and I use the good ideas. Don’t convict me based on thinking aloud. That works if the jury buys it," said Safer.
The defense was helped somewhat by a Supreme Court ruling after the trial began that declared the "honest services" law unconstitutional, but prosecutors had prepared by adding additional charges that did not rely on that law.
