We have previously discussed how Jesse Jackson Jr. disappeared for months without explanation while federal investigators sought information on allegations that he tried to buy a Senate seat and that he used campaign funds on his home. He then was admitted to the Mayo Clinic for pyschological problems but insisted on running for reelection (without campaigning). He won handily and pledged to serve his constituents . . . while he reportedly negotiated a criminal plea bargain. He left Mayo and there is now a report that Jackson is demanding a disability package in return for leaving office.
Investigators are reportedly also looking into $42,000 that they believe Jackson paid to buy an alleged mistress a Rolex watch.
As a threshold matter, it is unclear to me why there are serious plea bargain and disability discussions if Jackson used campaign funds to improve his home. The late Sen. Stevens was prosecuted for such misconduct. This would be a case of theft from his campaign of $20,000. Average people go to jail for a fraction of that amount in cases of theft or fraud. However, this is the son of Jesse Jackson.
There is now a report that Jesse Jackson Jr.’s wife, Alderman Sandi Jackson, is being also investigated for her payments as a “consultant” for Jackson’s campaign with a monthly payment. For those of us familiar with the Jackson family business in politics, none of this is particularly surprising. Yet, voters in some of the poorest areas of Chicago continue to reelect Jackson and his wife.
In the meantime, Jackson continues to reportedly self-deal and, if this story is true, hold his office hostage to continuing federal support. This is all the more shocking if it is true that Jackson is negotiating a plea bargain. It is hard to imagine prosecutors seriously considering a reduction in charges against a powerful politician, let alone such a reduction while he holds up Congress for money. It also makes his non-campaign for reelection all the more problematic. As soon as he was reelected, the news account suggest he used his new term to leverage a disability payment (while telling his constituents that he was working for their interests).
Source: Politico
The more publicity this gets, the better–it’s the only way to get this incestuous “agreement” harpooned.
It is just amazing……. Defending a swindler and calling Obamas AG a lynch mob……. I love it….. A true nonobjective party hack…… If you’re not part of the solution…..you are the problem…..
seamus, “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” Thanks for your expertise on this.
@Nick
The hung jury wasn’t that amazing (Sam Adam Jr., Blago’s Atty, would have the general public think otherwise. I don’t blame him since it was great for marketing). In reality it was only one juror who was holding the whole thing up. The jury was hanging by a thread. His lead attorney, Adam, bolted from the retrial after milking the hung jury for all it was worth (P.T. Barnum – style) During the first trial he was getting his ass chewed-out by the judge for not knowing federal procedure almost every day. The real triple-level, through-the-looking-glass, mind-f**k is that it looks like Sam Adam Jr. is going to take a run at JJJr.’s seat if there’s a special election. He doesn’t even live in the frickin’ district!!! I actually like Sam. But it ridiculous that he’s being pushed by the black Democratic machine for no other reason apparently than name recognition.
i remember the Jackson’s were on the HGTV network show vying for a $50,000 home makeover contest. Guess they found another way to get their home re-done.
And Sandi should go down…she is like Carmella Soprano, the beneficiary of her spouse’s criminal activity.
I frankly would think Jr. would rather plead this out instead of having a very public trial with his white mistress testifying about the airplane trips and trysts.
Bill McWilliams, “That’s racist.” A tongue in cheek comment on that grossly overused two words. Young people of all races understand that. “That’s racist” is now a joke phrase w/ young people of all races when someone makes any comments adverse to any black person. Quite a culture has evolved, don’t you think?
Millions of people support people the Jacksons with the rationalization that
this is merely payback, blowback, or reparations by a different name.
Thus, to their supporters, it’s nothing to get upset about. Envious, perhaps. but not anger, or desire to them punished any more than they already have been and continue to be, because of the color of their skin.
Okay, NPRers, start your denial engines, and let ’em sputter.
Seamus, I didn’t work criminal cases in Cook County, although I did get to know a couple prosecutors. As you might expect, they would lament Cook County juries. And since you work criminal defense, you obviously have the same lament. I should have limited my comment to political criminal prosecutions. I was talking out of my ass inluding ALL criminal prosecutions. I plead guilty. However, the Blago hung jury was a stunner to me. I’ll defer to you seamus, but I’m sure you realize prosecutors in Cook County would disagree. I respect people w/ real world experience. I worked as an investigator for the prosecutors office in Jackson County, Mo. Back in the 70’s we had an advantage, but not a big one. I don’t know the current climate. My work in Chicago was early to mid 80’s, and as stated previously, civil defense work.
@Nick
I practice as a criminal defense attorney in Cook County (mostly at 26th and California) and in the Federal Dist Court for the Northern Dist. of Illinois (in which Chicago is located). Your statements about the prosecutors in this area being hamstrung by the juries here is nonsense.
@rafflaw
I’m not sure I agree that JJJr. would already be indicted if the Feds really had the goods. I think there’s a very real possibility he’s being treated with kid gloves ( and sloooowwww kid gloves). And that this slow dance was to time this mess after the election. I live in the south burbs in JJJr.’s district, and yes, I’ve voted for him every time save the last election, when I just couldn’t do it any more. Raghuveer Nayak, the bag man who approached Blago with the offer to buy JJJr. Obama’s vacated seat, testified at the ex-governer’s trial that there was a definate quid pro quo for the money being raised by JJJr. for Blago (I think it was $2 mil.) It has never been explained by the US Atty. or anyone else why JJJr. wasn’t indicted along with Blago. I definately think Obama made a call (and yes, I voted for him too, though without much enthusiasm the second time).
There is and was a school of psychiatry at Barnes Hospital and Washington University in Saint Louis called the Renardian School. Their main front was that all of Freud was a fraud and that all mental illness was organic and could be treated with shock treatment, drugs and brain surgery. Schizophrenia became widely diagnosed so they eased up a bit on white anglo suburbanites and sttarted diagnosing folks with mild cases or the lower eschelons of illness as having bi polar disorders. it is easier on the pallet at cocktain discussions about Uncle Sidney. We dont know if Tom Eagleton was bi polar or half grizzly and half arctic polar but he got the shock treatmetns and when the news was released it got heard round the world. He got kicked off the ticket. So now we have a guyin and out of the Mayonzise Clinic for alleged bi polar symptions and yet no one has put his medical reconds on the record here. It is all hearsay and innuendo. But we know he is a patient and being treated. Now we have hearsay about him wanting to get disability and leave Congress. Gee, they have disability insurance or somesuch program? Lifetime medical for self and family evend after we retire, like that RepubliCon guy who retired and has his kid on life tenure for medical care. He had a funny name and ran for President and lost out to the gypsie. Paterno? No. Plenty? Nah. Anyway, in the last few weeks we have had these articles here on the blog about Jesse Junior (I cant believe he is 47 years old already). Jeso, a member of Congress with bi polar and no details about whether it is two white polars or a comination of grizzily but they keep saying bi polar. Then we hear that his wi8e has an expensive Rolex watch. I have an expensive looking one too but mine is not worth ten bucks, its a fake. I bought a Senate Seat for five bucks in DC and I sit on it as I write this comment. Lets pick on MLK while we are at it and perhaps his kid.
The people of Chicago in this guys District vote for him to vote for them and to do so the right way. That is what we send them up there to do. To Vote Democrat. Early and Often. Vote for Health Care. Vote against right wing nut stuff. I can give a rats arse if his wife has a fake Rolex. I wish I lived in his District. I got some RepubliCon som itchinBay who thinks that we need to secede from the Union and who takes money off of guys on K Street and takes home Hookers from C Street. Or is it the other way around? Someone please enlighten me.
Do I detect a smidgeon of racism here? Perhaps a good deal of schadenfreude to perk up our Romney depressions?
A lot of jump on the bandwagon no matter its relevance or appropriateness?
How many white polisticians throughout the centuries have paraded by without even being outed in the least.
And now we have a political family that have parleyed Pappas position as the black mayor of Chicago which includes getting a little goodies all expect of them. WOW!
Good work Buster Cherry!
I particualarly appreciated this bit, which simply implies that the blacks who vote have visited many bars before hand. Cool?
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Blouise
1, November 16, 2012 at 12:29 am
Chicago has more bars per capita than any other large American city.
Lots of places to stop on the way to the polls.
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Waldo,
if the Feds have a solid case against Jackson, he would be already be in front of a judge. The feds have been very effective in the last decade or so in getting corruption convictions.
nick,
while I agree that Cook County juries are more generous than the collar counties when it comes to personal injury matters, the rest of your statement about prosecutors are at a disadvantage overall is not based in fact. If there is any delay in getting a criminal case to trial, it is usually the overall caseload that determines the timing. The prosecutors are plenty effective in getting pleas and winning trials.
Waldo, In Cook County you want to try and avoid a jury trial @ all cost unless you’re a personal injury plaintiff’s attorney or criminal defense. That’s why it’s so hard to get criminal pleas, prosecutors know they go in w/ an 0-1 count vis a vis juries. Personal injury defense attorney, 0-2 count. I worked for a large insurance defense firm, very few trials in Cook County, many more in surrounding counties where there is some sanity.
My brain was working faster than my fingers.
“Why they have *not* raised hell…”
What the hell are the Republicans doing while all this is going on? They have been going batsh*t crazy trying to find something to latch on to in criticizing the Dems and Obama. Why they have raised hell and demanded Jackson’s resignation is beyond me, as is the fact that Republicans (and Faux News) have not ran with this story.
Buster, while you seem to have a righteous rant on just now, still I wonder, do you think that Jackson the younger’s criminal charges should be mitigated due to a diagnosed disorder? Perhaps he should be adjudicated guilty by reason of some diagnosed disorder, which might render a more onerous outcome than a criminal conviction or plea. What about the issue of fitness to serve? Jackson seems to be acknowledging his lack of fitness himself and is just negotiating the terms of leaving. Maybe even drop the criminal charges. What do you think? And why does the specific diagnosis matter in the legal/political sense when the behavioral results seem clearly disabling?
Darren Smith
1, November 16, 2012 at 12:50 am
He might be a schmuck, but he is their schmuck.
Even more evidence there is more than one system of justice: one for the political class, one for the well connected, and one for everyone else.
send him to prison
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Along with Patraeus … just tryin’ to be consistent.
What is his diagnosed illness? He would not be admitted if he did not have some diagnosed illness. If you dont know what it is then get off of his case. If he is bi polar then tell us which two polars he has. If you say he is seeking disability then tell us what you know. Throw real rocks not snow cones. Pretty soon the law students at GW are going to be asking JT for a refund because they paid more because the place had a great rating based on lies and JT got paid more to teach based on what the kids pay. So, who is conning who in Washington DC? If Jesse has an illness then quit beating up on him. And if he does not and is faking it then tell us what you know.
Bukko
I wonder how the “made men” know they’re in? Is there an initiation rite, or do they get taught a secret handshake? Depending on how powerful a person is, does he or she get a printed card that says “You can get away with THESE crimes, but you are not at the MurderAnyoneYouWant level yet.”
Bloggo made a BIG mistake, he foolishly mixed up his membership in the Hair Club for men certificate with his apprenticeship card for the M.A.Y.W. Club. 🙂