Succession Conversation: Emanuel & Blago's Office

President-elect Barack Obama's first transition-team pick was Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel.

Even before Emanuel was selected, however, he was talking with the office of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich about who would replace Obama in the Senate.

On the weekend before Illinois senator was elected president, according to Chicago Tribune reports, Emanuel contacted Blagojevich's chief of staff, John Harris, to provide a list of potential appointees who, supposedly, were acceptable to Obama. (Harris was arrested along with the governor on charges that they schemed to trade Obama's seat for financial or political benefits to the governor.)

On the initial list that Emanuel provided were the names of Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs director Tammy Duckworth; Illinois State Comptroller Dan Hynes; and Chicago Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.

Emanuel made a second call to add Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

So far, Emanuel has refused to answer questions about his conversations with the governor's office.

When Emanuel does talk, it will be interesting to learn why so many of the names on the list of potential successors were close allies of Emanuel -- such as Duckworth, Hynes and Madigan -- are pols with whom he has been linked over the years. In particular, Duckworth, who lost a 2006 Illinois congressional race that was one of Emanuel's top priorities as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has been a close ally of Obama's chief of staff.

Perhaps Emanuel and Obama really are of one mind, which would explain the selection of the congressman to serve as chief of staff.

But if Emanuel was adding some of his own favorites to the list -- an old trick of political emissaries -- he won't just have to explain things to investigators and reporters. He may have to explain things to Obama.

As for Obama, he will have to explain whether -- despite his claim that he was staying out of the selection process -- he delegated Emanuel to, in fact, try and guide the process.

Either way, Obama will continue to find himself answering questions about this scandal in coming days. And the pressure for comment from Emanuel will only rise.

Comments (23)

1. "When Emanuel does talk, it will be interesting to learn why so many of the names on the list of potential successors were close allies of Emanuel -- such as Duckworth, Hynes and Madigan -- are pols with whom he has been linked over the years."

   What's to learn? I've been telling you for weeks that Emanuel is the ventriloquist and Obama the puppet, and when AIPAC places a Chief of Staff/President, they want their own Senate too. I mean Dick Cheney leaves office in just a few weeks, did you think that AIPAC would leave a vacuum?

   Posted by john lowell at 12/14/2008 @ 12:30pm

2. By the way, where's Mask these days? Cat got your tongue, Mask, or is it that thought it was too warm under that rock to come out for the moment?

   Posted by john lowell at 12/14/2008 @ 12:45pm

3. 'But if Emanuel was adding some of his own favorites to the list -- an old trick of political emissaries -- he won't just have to explain things to investigators and reporters. He may have to explain things to Obama.'

   Gov. Rendell said it best...paraphrasing here...."ya think the American people are that stupid"? Perhaps The Nation should follow his cue?

   Posted by OneVote at 12/14/2008 @ 1:00pm

4. Does it necessarily mean because Emanuel has had dealings with these people that he automatically is involved in this stuff with Blago! Why because he chooses not to talk about it does that make him somehow a mastermind in the affair? How amazing, the right are so quick to find absolutely anything even remotely linked to Obama to make him look bad and some kind of "enabler" in all this stuff. I think the right need to clean out their closets really well before they come in all guns blazing about the Obama team. Talk about people in glass houses!!!!!!!!

   Posted by Caj at 12/14/2008 @ 1:01pm

5. The question is NOT whether Emanuel talked to Blago's Chief of Staff, or even whether he preferred political allies as Obama's replacement, it is whether he was engaged in "trading the seat" for cash or other political favors suggested by Blago - and on that score we learn from the FBI tapes that the answer was clearly, no.

   Emanuel only offered "appreciation" in exchange for the appointment - nothing else.

   Posted by Metteyya at 12/14/2008 @ 1:44pm

6. I don't know whether I love or hate the conspiracy theorists who either write for the Nation or post here. Everthing is controlled by Aipac or those shocking globalization capitalists or Haliburton. How about the Vatican, Freemasonary or the Illuminati?

   Posted by mickyboy212 at 12/14/2008 @ 1:55pm

7. Everthing is controlled by Aipac or those shocking globalization capitalists or Haliburton. How about the Vatican, Freemasonary or the Illuminati?

   Posted by mickyboy212 at 12/14/2008 @ 1:55pm | ignore this person | warn this person

   My bet is AIPAC. Jackson Junior is suffering the sins of his father. Jackson meets Monday and Blagojevich is arrested Tuesday. This whole deal is to strip the Gov. of appointment powers over the senate seat. It would have been difficult to deny Jackson the seat if Blago had appointed him. Wouldn't have sat too well with the black caucus.

   Watch for the Gov.'s resignation in exchange for leniency and unknown favors - like the Spitzer deal. Cleaning up corruption isn't what this is about. It is a power play.

   Posted by OneVote at 12/14/2008 @ 2:07pm

8. "Talk about people in glass houses!!!!!!!! Posted by Caj at 12/14/2008 @ 1:01pm"

   Yeah, let's talk about people in glass houses. the Left has been railing about Cheney, Halliburton, favors, no-compete contracts, cozy business deals, etc., for the last 8 years. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. You'll be hearing about Democrat corruption for the next four years. And I expect there will be plenty of slime under the Democrat rock when we flip it over.

   "Emanuel only offered "appreciation" in exchange for the appointment - nothing else. Posted by Metteyya at 12/14/2008 @ 1:44pm"

   He doesn't get off that easy. Blago was "brazen". Do you expect us to believe that the subject of money-to- Blago-in-exchange-for-a-favorable-appointment just did not come up in Rahm's conversation with Blago and Harris? I'm sure it did. What was Rahm's response? He says he said "appreciation only", but did he follow that up with a phone call to the FBI to report the attempted bribery? If not, why not? Do the Dems in Illinois prefer to look the other way when it comes to crooked fellow Dems? Isn't it a crime to fail to report a felony to the authorities? Maybe not, but it certainly shows a lack of ethics.

   "Change You Can BELIEVE In!".......NOT

   Posted by twillie at 12/14/2008 @ 2:37pm

9. "Change You Can BELIEVE In!".......NOT

   Posted by twillie at 12/14/2008 @ 2:37pm

   If there is any wrong doing then all involved should be punished no matter which side of the isle they come from. The only difference here is Cheney has never been held accountable for anything to this date...so when this man is held to account you can come back and talk about Dem corruption. He is one sleazy, despicable and cunning individual who needs investigating pronto as do many others in the White House.

   Posted by Caj at 12/14/2008 @ 7:40pm

10. who needs investigating pronto as do many others in the White House. Posted by Caj at 12/14/2008 @ 7:40pm

    He's been investigated by hostile mainstream media for 8 years. What are you going to hold him "accountable" for?. Specific charges, please.

    Posted by twillie at 12/14/2008 @ 8:22pm

11. He's been investigated by hostile mainstream media for 8 years. What are you going to hold him "accountable" for?. Specific charges, please.

    Posted by twillie at 12/14/2008 @ 8:22pm

    You are joking, right? Or are you just that clueless? The "hostile" MSM have been Republican lapdogs throughout the past 8 years. As for specific charges, Cheney has willfully ignored all laws regarding public disclosure. From what I recall, he used the Republican National Committee for most of his email, and all records of his dealings have been conveniently deleted. This alone justifies a full scale criminal investigation of his activities. Let's see how quick the cronies start talking when they know that there's no presidential pardon to prevent jail time.

    Posted by sandersh at 12/15/2008 @ 02:04am

12. He's been investigated by hostile mainstream media for 8 years. What are you going to hold him "accountable" for?. Specific charges, please.

    Posted by twillie at 12/14/2008 @ 8:22pm

    To begin at the beginning, let's start with the SCOTUS coup d'etat of 2000. By law, Scalia and Thomas should have recused themselves due to conflicts of interest = Scalia's sons worked for a law firm that represented the Bush family and Thomas's wife was on Bush's transition team. Bush had no 14th Amendment standing, and the case was not decided on law, hence the statement that it was not to be used as precedent in the future. Bush lied to Congress about yellowcake, and that's a felony, and one of any number of lies. He authorized wiretapping and torture. Oh, then there's his war and occupation of another sovereign nation, outing a covert CIA operative, the theft of the 2004 election... Hostile mainstream media? Yeah, twillie, in your paranoid fantasies.

    Posted by jmusolino at 12/15/2008 @ 02:13am

13. It would be odd if someone hadnt given a list of potential people,wouldnt it?There seems to be no there there.Are the media just bored or over compensating?

    Posted by truthynesslover at 12/15/2008 @ 04:01am

14. Please pull your heads out of your asses. Their ain't no coincidences. Obama is not the only pure, clean, virginal politician to come out of Chicago. We know this now because none of the main, legitimate medias did any vetting of Obama at all. And if they did then they buried this until now because the would do nothing to hurt Obama's chances. You may love Obama and hate Bush, but the media has failed us and lost any credibility they may of had by being completely biased during this election. This includes lesser media, The Nation for example.

    Posted by wredner at 12/15/2008 @ 06:33am

15. Specific charges, please. Posted by twillie at 12/14/2008 @ 8:22pm

    I think where "Shooter" Cheney is involved it may be easier to make a list of things he should not be held accountable for..

    Posted by chaoszen at 12/15/2008 @ 10:16am

16. I don't know whether I love or hate the conspiracy theorists who either write for the Nation or post here. Everthing is controlled by Aipac or those shocking globalization capitalists or Haliburton. How about the Vatican, Freemasonary or the Illuminati?

    Posted by mickyboy212 at 12/14/2008 @ 1:55pm |

    You forgot the Bohemian Grove.

    Posted by boing007 at 12/15/2008 @ 10:31am

17. You may love Obama and hate Bush, but the media has failed us and lost any credibility they may of had by being completely biased during this election. This includes lesser media, The Nation for example.

    Posted by wredner at 12/15/2008 @ 06:33am

    Biased, are you joking...throughout this election Obama was talked about every single day by the media!!!! Fox News couldn't get enough fodder on him to report quick enough whether is was true or not....in Fox News case usually unture anyway. Did not hear many complaints from the right when Sarah Palin was an unknown from day one of her being chosen for VP and we never knew anything about her either. No, Obama was scrutinized by the media believe you me and were they biased toward him, I think not.

    Posted by Caj at 12/15/2008 @ 10:46am

18. I believe we should all focus upon what we can prove. If we can't prove anything, Rahm Emanuel will simply deny that he did anything unethical, and we will have achieved the most that we, as devotees of honesty and good government, can achieve.

    Unfortunately, the principle of good government, which allows that we are all innocent until proven guilty, offers a safe harbor for many scoundrels and therefore occasionally weakens the principle of honesty. But this cannot be helped.

    But if we (or some diligent investigator, like Patrick Fitzgerald) CAN prove that Emanuel either offered or requested some quid pro quo, I believe he should be made to suffer some major public disgrace. Perhaps this would permit Obama to consider appointing another, less ethically compromised, and (dare we hope) more politically progressive Chief of Staff.

    I would like to keep the optimism in that last paragraph restrained. It may after all have NO basis in reality. Rahm Emanuel may be the best Chief of Staff that the US-American political system is capable of producing at the present time. We should not foolishly assume that his replacement would be any better, though surely more progressive and less compromised Democrats than Emanuel are numerous and would be easy to find.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 12/15/2008 @ 12:31pm

19. "Bush lied to Congress about yellowcake, and that's a felony, and one of any number of lies. He authorized wiretapping and torture. Oh, then there's his war and occupation of another sovereign nation..." How quickly people forget. Iraq did have a rather large supply of yellowcake (where did he get it, from us?). The issues of wiretapping and "torture". The Patriot Act authorized this stuff explicitly and was approved by a rather Large margin - check the record. Torture? I remember democratic senators complaining that maybe we were not being tough enough on the vermine we captured... War on a sovereign nation? Same answer. You can stir all this stuff up all you want but there is ample video and audio to counter it.

    Posted by pyeatte at 12/15/2008 @ 2:53pm

20. Posted by pyeatte at 12/15/2008 @ 2:53pm

    You will never get any Republican to admit that Bush/Cheney or Rumsfeld etc have done anything wrong....they all walk on water you see and if that happens you are faultless!!!! There are so many things that need investigating during this administration that has been covered up, conveniently lost...top secret and the list goes on. If that latest episode with the shoe throwing does not tell Bush something then I don't know what will.

    Posted by Caj at 12/15/2008 @ 3:46pm

21. Emanuel will have to go. He is lightning rod of distraction for Obama. a charge will be laid at his feet that will show that he is the "bag-man". Emanuel has been a thug with a check-book in the Dems Party for too many years and with this power he not only has created deep mis-trust amoungst labor, Greens,civil activist and the grasroots of the Dems.

    Emanuel is not part of a real progressive movement and has made it plain to all those that listen and learn about his voting record(co-wrote the Flat tax bill!) and not to mention his mysterious ways of making millions- even the New York Times can't pin-point how Emanual made such huge amounts of money and in such an effortless way- and that's just for starters.

    Sorry folks, but I think this was gonna happen one way or another because of Rahm Emanuel. He's a bully. He's a stink bomb. A problem child. Obama must dump Emanuel.

    Posted by blueboru at 12/15/2008 @ 4:02pm

22. "By law, Scalia and Thomas should have recused themselves due to conflicts of interest"

    Which law is that, jmusolino? Thats a decision for each judge to make.

    "Bush had no 14th Amendment standing" Says you? The Supremes said that he did. And it's their job to say what the law is.

    "Bush lied to Congress about yellowcake, and that's a felony, and one of any number of lies."

    When did he testify under oath in front of Congress?

    "He authorized wiretapping" No, that was FISA. Which was re-authorized by the current DEMOCRAT led Congress. Honestly, jmusolino, you just made all this up.

    If the Republicans stole both 2000 and 2004, and nobody got caught, why didn't they just steal 2008 too? Because you were on to them?

    Posted by twillie at 12/15/2008 @ 11:05pm

23. Posted by twillie at 12/15/2008 @ 11:05pm

    "Bush had no 14th Amendment standing" Says you? The Supremes said that he did. And it's their job to say what the law is."

    Or what the law is in one isolated, non-precedent setting (please don't ask/thank god we can't be fired) baseless decision?

    "Bush lied to Congress about yellowcake, and that's a felony, and one of any number of lies."

    When did he testify under oath in front of Congress?"

    When did he offer the tiniest bit of transparency or not obsfucate with bogus 'executive privilege'?

    "If the Republicans stole both 2000 and 2004, and nobody got caught, why didn't they just steal 2008 too? Because you were on to them?"

    Yes. That and the margin was too big to kill this time. (Maybe a dem hacked the diebold machines this time. Why are accurate elections a partisan issue?)

    Posted by Malcontent at 12/16/2008 @ 06:45am