I have been a critic of aspects of the case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich, 58, was convicted of 18 counts of corruption and given a 14-year sentence. The most problematic charge in my view concerned Blagojevich’s wheeling and dealing for the appointment of a successor to fill the 2008 vacant U.S. Senate seat of then-President-Elect Barack Obama. Now a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has overturned five of the counts specifically dealing with that vacancy controversy.
The panel ruled that there was nothing illegal in Blagojevich seeking to secure a Cabinet position in President Barack Obama’s administration in exchange for appointing an Obama adviser to the president’s former U.S. Senate seat. The panel ruled:
But a problem in the way the instructions told the jury to consider the evidence requires us to vacate the convictions on counts that concern Blagojevich’s proposal to appoint Valerie Jarrett to the Senate in exchange for an appointment to the Cabinet. A jury could have found that Blagojevich asked the President-elect for a private-sector job, or for funds that he could control, but the instructions permitted the jury to convict even if it found that his only request of Sen. Obama was for a position in the Cabinet. The instructions treated all proposals alike. We conclude, however, that they are legally different: a proposal to trade one public act for another, a form of logrolling, is fundamentally unlike the swap of an official act for a private payment.
. . .
A proposal to appoint a particular person to one office (say, the Cabinet) in exchange for someone else’s promise to appoint a different person to a different office (say, the Senate), is a common exercise in logrolling. We asked the prosecutor at oral argument if, before this case, logrolling had been the basis of a criminal conviction in the history of the United States. Counsel was unaware of any earlier conviction for an exchange of political favors. Our own research did not turn one up. It would be more than a little surprising to Members of Congress if the judiciary found in the Hobbs Act, or the mail fraud statute, a rule making everyday politics criminal.
. . .
Put to one side for a moment the fact that a position in the Cabinet carries a salary. Suppose that Blagojevich had asked, instead, that Sen. Obama commit himself to supporting a program to build new bridges and highways in Illinois as soon as he became President. Many politicians believe that public-works projects promote their re-election. If the prosecutor is right that a public job counts as a private bene fit, then the benefit to a politician from improved chances of election to a paying job such as Governor—or a better pro spect of a lucrative career as a lobbyist after leaving office— also would be a private benefit, and we would be back to the proposition that all logrolling is criminal. Even a politician who asks another politician for favors only because he sincerely believes that these favors assist his constituents could be condemned as a felon, because grateful constituents make their gratitude known by votes or post-office employment.
This still leaves the remaining convictions and it is not clear if the favorable ruling will result in a significant reduction or any reduction of time for Blagojevich. His sentence was vacated but there may not be a new trial on just these counts. The lower court could simply hold a re-sentencing hearing, which could result in effectively the same sentence or a reduction.
I remain uneasy with the line dividing logrolling and criminal conduct in the case generally. Blagojevich is clearly a crude and unethical person. His taped conversation of vulgar and grasping greed clearly impacted the jury as it did many of us. It is hard to get a jury to remain neutral when listening to a governor who sounds like John Gotti: “I’ve got this thing and it’s f—— golden. And I’m just not giving it up for f—— nothing.”
However, I fail to see the clear line with the type of favors and logrolling that is commonly practiced by politicians in both the state and federal systems. The panel brought home this concern by noting how President Dwight Eisenhower named Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court allegedly after Warren offered Eisenhower key political support during the 1952 campaign.
Yet, despite this analysis, the panel upheld convictions based on Blagojevich trying to sell the Senate seat for campaign cash. The panel said that the absence of a direct demand for money is neither unexpected or determinative. Indeed the panel added an unexpected reference: “Few politicians say, on or off the record, ‘I will exchange official act X for payment Y.’ Similarly persons who conspire to rob banks or distribute drugs do not propose or sign contracts in the statutory language. ‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know what I mean’ can amount to extortion … just as it can furnish the gist of a Monty Python sketch.”
For now, Blagojevich will continue to serve the longest sentence for corruption in the state pending any change by the lower court. His estimated date of release was 2024 when he would be 67.
Here is the opinion: Blagojevich decision
BDS has been proven to create dementia. We see it here regularly.
Another stupid reader who is incapable to using The Google.
Blago was never, ever a US Senator.
Michelle Obama was on the partner track and had stellar reviews.
davidm/tinear
Obama’s connections were light years away from those of the little cowboy. Obama’s connections amounted to examples of higher education, responsibility, and a middle class environment, perhaps upper middle class. This is the strata that is connected with the most people, one that is within the working class yet has an understanding of management. Obama was given the opportunity to apply himself and he did, with success above and beyond most politicians. The little cowboy was not cut from the same cloth of those like Obama and not even of the same cloth of his family. He was a boozer, a failure at the businesses which were set up for him, and a C- student at Yale, a school he would never have made it into if it were not for his father. His greatest achievement up until the time he was put in office was to be the Captain of the Cheerleaders.
There are self made men like Clinton and Obama and then there are those like Bush and Romney. Sometimes something of a reasonable calibre comes from the elite and privileged class and sometimes you get a dud. Bush was a dud who happened to come along at the right time and had the right handlers. Regardless of all the BS spewed about Obama he is his own handler. Too many Americans don’t know how lucky they are. There could have been a McCain/Palin Presidency or a Romney/what’s his name Presidency and we would be entering another recession and perhaps another endless war.
issac – how can we forget John Kerry who married money and had lower grades and IQ score than Bush. And he just did a deal with Iran that has two (count them two) secret side deals that Congress and the American people are prevented from knowing.
There’s a weekend blogger here who would vote for Blago again if given the chance.
Isaac – Obama’s mother was a Ph.D anthropologist and his father a Harvard educated economist. His grandmother managed a bank. Clearly, his socio-economic status growing up was in the top 1%. Not to mention he attended an elite private school in Hawaii, and then Ivy League college and law. Blago’s socio-economic background is actually similar to that of Michele Obama. Both from Chicago. Her father work for the city water dept; his for a steel mill. Her mother a secretary; his a ticket taker for the subway system. In other words, both similarly working class. But Michele went to Princeton and Blago went to a state school. Michelle went to Harvard Law and Blago went to Pepperdine. No affirmative action for him. Just some white guy who grew up speaking Serbian. But despite her Ivy credentials, Michelle only lasted a few years as an associate in an elite Chicago firm. Then she went to work as some kind of community liaison for a hospital. Basically, she couldn’t cut it as a lawyer. Blago went to work for the Cook County District Attorney’s office. After working as a successful prosecutor, he was elected to the State Assembly, U.S. Senate, and Governor of Illinois. Dumb? Hardly! Arrogant and foolish for sure; definitely a Type-A risk taker. He’s the very sort of person that you liberals want to denigrate; a working class white guy whose grit and determination made him more successful than all the entitlement and affirmative action privileges for the weak, silver-spoon class.
Any public official’s quid pro quo, private or public, where the primary objective is self-serving should be a crime. Blago cannot objectively argue his primary goal in receiving a Cabinet position is to serve better his constituents when he is the governor at the time of the bargain. That condition is primarily self-serving.
On the other hand, I don’t know that the potential increase in votes in a future election campaign (thereby promoting re-election) would constitute a quid pro quo because the bargain isn’t definite. There’s no guarantee as to either voter turnout or ultimately winning re-election.
While I agree with its conclusion that the jury instruction was improper, the 7th Circuit’s acquiescence to “logrolling” by public officials for personal gain as part and parcel of our political heritage is a good reason why people see it as something other than what it really is: corruption.
isaac wrote: “Obama was brought up by a single mom and did not have the privileges of which you speak.”
Let’s be truthful. There were only a few years when Obama might have been raised by a single mom. Maybe between 1965 to 1966, although she was dating the man she would later marry. She married Lolo Soetoro in 1967 and moved to Indonesia. Then in 1971 when Barack was 10, she sent him to live with her parents. They got him a scholarship to a prestigious prep school. She followed in 1972, and while you might argue that the four of them were headed by a single mom family, clearly the grandparents were very involved. Barack’s mom did not divorce her second husband until 1980 when Barack was clearly an adult. Barack’s biological father was a Harvard Alumni, earning a Master’s degree there. Clearly that afforded Barack Jr. privilege to attend Harvard, and the color of his skin and history in Indonesia surely brought him additional privilege that average white youths simply do not have. Barack landed a deal to write a book about his life before he even graduated from Harvard. This is all from the privilege of him being born a black man raised much of the time by whites and living in America.
Yeah, and sometimes you get a duplicitous, treasonous, subversive, anti-American, community organizer at the helm.
It seems that every so often a politician is indicted for doing what many, if not most other politicians do. It seems like it’s just propaganda to make the public think that slimy politicians are identified and outed.
Quite the contrary, a “democratic” system requires politicians to secretly wheel and deal to get what they want, as opposed to other systems where those in power just murder, imprison, or impoverish others to get what they want.
Tinear
Obama was brought up by a single mom and did not have the privileges of which you speak. All politicians make connections. Clinton made it on his own, Rhodes Scholar, Governor, etc. All politicians make connections. Hillary made it on her own. Blago made it on his own. However he was a dufus.
Now, for the example of the century, hopefully two centuries how a dufus made it to the Presidency, twice, entirely on connections. All politicians make connections and sometimes the biggest joke is made President by those connections. W would have made a great episode for a Twilight Zone episode. But, too late, fiction became fact.
All politicians are corrupt and wheel and deal. The only thing one can hope for is the politician that has an IQ above 100. Blago and the little cowboy are an example of what happens when a dufus and connections come together.
Sometimes you get a Rhodes Scholar for a President and sometimes you get the Captain of the Cheerleaders.
issac – sometimes you get a rapist and perjurer for President, sometimes you don’t.
I will be quite surprised if Obama pardons Blago, as it was Obama’s Justice Dept that went after him in the first place – with a vengeance, I might add. While I did not follow the case closely, it seemed odd that he would be sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for the kind of political horse-trading that is common in politics. I figured it must be retaliation for something, or perhaps the Obama administration wanted him out of the picture because he posed a political threat or hindrance to their plans for placing key loyalists in Chicago political positions. The only “crime” that I can see is that Blago is crude and brash – the arrogant, self-made son of a Serbian speaking immigrant household. His father worked in a steel mill and his mother was a ticket taker for the subway. He worked his way through college as an amateur boxer and worked on the Alaska pipeline. He didn’t go to Ivy League schools, and I’ve read that the Chucago political elite – Obama, Rahm Emanuel, etc., sneered at him because of his rough background. Perhaps a bit of jealousy in all that, because Blago made it on his own without wealthy, well-educated parents. I mean, can you imagine Obama working on the Alaska pipeline? The thought makes me laugh out loud. So yes, Blago was rough around the edges but certainly no more corrupt than other Illinois politicians, including Jesse Jackson, Jr, Hillary Clinton, and then there’s Obama’s questionable land deal in Chicago that nobody questioned… But Blago wasn’t an insider so he got crushed by the political establishment.
“A jury could have found that Blagojevich asked the President-elect for a private-sector job, or for funds that he could control, but the instructions permitted the jury to convict even if it found that his only request of Sen. Obama was for a position in the Cabinet. The instructions treated all proposals alike. We conclude, however, that they are legally different.”
Absurd.
He should do time for the haircut alone.
JT: get an editor. 7th Circuit. Many times there are spulling errors. While I cannot spull all dat good, even I see the errors. A good guide dog could be of help. A guide dog with a Dogalogue Machine.
This article points out that ‘logrolling’ should not be a criminal offense. Scalia will agree if some case like this gets to the Sup. Ct. All of those Harvard and Yale gals and guys who clerk for a judge on the DC Court of Appeals know what log rolling is. Whether it is one word or two a log roller is a common person in America. Putting a log roller in jail would be as dumb as putting a dumb tobacco smoker in jail. Next it will be all oxymorons. Prisons have their limits.
Blago is typical of the Chicago style of politics and they deserve him. My guess is that Obama will pardon him as one of his last acts in office.
Errata: in the first paragraph it should be the 7th Circuit, not the 9th.
Here is the Monty Python skit the Court referenced in its opinion:
Blago represented politics as usual. He should have never served any time or been convicted of anything except acting like a cheap politician. There are rumors that they went after him because he refused to nominate Lisa Madigan as the interim US Senate for Illinois?
If any else has heard any other backdoor info as to why they (Illinois Elites) went after Blago, besides his hair style, please feel free to let me know?
I continue to await prosecutions and convictions for Members of Congress who sell their votes daily for campaign cash and promises of jobs when they retire. And how about Mr. Holder and Covington, it see,s worthy if an investigation. But then Blogo was never the President’s type.
He knows where the bodies are buried. He has probably threatened to start talking if Barry doesn’t start to do something to get him out of the joint.