The Blagojevich legal team just can't get their story straight. Most notably, they're having a difficult time coming up with a reasonable explanation for why they did not make Chicago Tribune reporter John Chase tell a jury how he knew that the FBI had a wiretap on Blago.
Such a difficult time, in fact, veteran attorney Sheldon Sorosky actually said that if he had called Chase to testify, "They would have just blamed an FBI agent" for leaking the information about the wiretap.
Let's take a minute to fully appreciate what a truly remarkable statement that is for a defense attorney to make.
Clearly Sorosky is at a loss to explain why he did not call the one witness whose testimony could discredit the very people that Blago needed to discredit, namely the FBI.
Good thing you chose not to discredit the FBI, Shelly. Otherwise the prosecutors would have regretted calling FBI agent Dan Cain as their first witness to testify against your client in BOTH of Blagojevich's trials.
Remarkable, Shelly, truly remarkable! Can anyone spell malpractice?
Blago's other legal eagles, Sam Adam and Sam Adam, Jr., have been contacted by IP2P but have not responded. If they have anything to add to Sorosky's explanation just let us know?
As for Robert Blagojevich's attorney, Michael Ettinger, his previous position was that they would have put Chase on the witness stand had they thought of it. But that has now become "I don't recall who John Chase is."
Really Michael, now you don't remember who "Golden" author John Chase is? That's peculiar considering you've publicly declared John Chase a liar.
When you add all of the above to the fact that the media in Chicago is completely ignoring everything while posting "poor Patti Blagojevich" stories, you can only come to one conclusion:
The feds and Blago have finalized their deal, and you can expect the announcement of his early release from prison very soon.
Oh, and don't be surprised if you hear that WLS Radio has a job waiting for Blago when he gets out.
This may come as no surprise, but Rod Blagojevich's get-out-of-jail deal not only involves the federal prosecutors and his defense team, it also included the direct involvement of the Chicago Tribune.
That's because, as part of his deal to get out of prison, Rod Blagojevich agreed to let Chicago Tribune reporters John Chase and Jeff Coen lie to the public about the wiretap tapes that put him there.
Simple. Chase and Coen were instructed to tell the public that they listened to all the sealed tapes and found nothing interesting on them.
We know differently because Blago was caught on tape talking to some of the top power brokers in the country, including Obama and his chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel.
So the real question you must ask is:
Why would Rod Blagojevich and his lawyers, who knew very well the explosive contents of the conversations caught on those tapes, allow Chase and Coen to lie about them?
Facing 14 years in federal prison, Blagojevich should have dragged Chase and Coen in front of Judge Zagel and made them tell the court who gave them tapes and transcripts that he had placed under seal. But Blago didn't.
The $64k question is why?
Blago's attorney, Sheldon Sorosky, has confirmed that there is and never was anything stopping Blago from telling the public what is on the tapes, which he insist to this day prove his innocence.
So why did Blago and his attorneys let Chase and Coen's public proclamation that the contents of the sealed tapes confirm his guilt go unchallenged?
And why is Blago pretending he wants the tapes to be unsealed when he is completely ignoring the fact that the Chicago Tribune claims to have copies?
More importantly, why are the feds insisting the tapes stay sealed nearly 2 years after they gave copies to the two Chicago Tribune reporters-who have refused to make them public?
What possible reason could Chase and Coen have not to release the transcripts?
The answer is that Chicago Tribune reporters John Chase and Jeff Coen are lying to the public, the feds put them up to it, and Blago agreed to go along with the deception as part of his get-out-of-jail deal.
A three-judge panel hearing Blago's appeal has already taken the first step by announcing that the Blagojevich tapes would remain sealed.
Next, the same three-judge panel will find that Blago did not try to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. The court will say that Blago was just engaged in "political horse trading."
Blago's conviction for trying to sell the Senate seat will be overturned, and combined with a few other slick legal maneuvers, his sentence will be drastically reduced. Instead of spending 12 more years in federal prison, Blago will most likely be home for the holidays this year.
Time served! Which will make Dick Mell's daughter, Patti, very happy.
But more importantly for people like Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel, the court will have bought the silence of Rod and Patti Blagojevich.
As IP2P has been pointing out all along, the issue has never been whether or not the wiretap tapes would prove Blago's innocence. From the very beginning, the real issue for Blago has been leverage, and who else would go down with him if the tapes were played.
And that's why Blago never really wanted the tapes to be played. If they were, he would lose his leverage. It's that simple.
Playing the tapes would not prove Blago's innocence or get him out of prison. It would just get him company in there.
However, not playing the tapes ensures that those who would join Blago in prison if the tapes were played will do everything in their power to get him out of prison so the tapes won't be played.
CNS News understands that the real story in the Blagojevich saga is not Rod Blagojevich, it's former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
Rod Blagojevich is just another crooked politician who under normal circumstances in Illinois would never have seen the inside of a courtroom, much less a jail cell.
However, a distraction was needed to cover up crimes the Bush administration was committing, and to clear the path for Barack Hussein Obama to lead the next puppet administration.
Since Fitzgerald and his partners in crime (including the media) were successful, it is now time to let Blagojevich out of jail before he snitches on his fellow criminal government pals.
CNS News recognizes that although Blagojevich is guilty and belongs in jail, in the big picture Blago is just a flea on an elephant's ass.
If you really want to know who the big time criminals are, focus on Patrick Fitzgerald and what he has done. He will lead you right to them. Don't be distracted again!
High honors to Barbara Hollingsworth at CNS News, very astute.
Sun Times reporter Natasha Korecki continued the paper’s Chicagogate cover-up with her latest article that misleads Times’ readers about the Blagojevich saga.
What does "come clean" mean? Confess to his preacher, priest, rabbi or imam?
Korecki now wants Times readers to believe that it was by luck, and not by design, that Chicago was cheated out of the opportunity to learn about Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s.(J.J.,Jr.) attempt to buy the senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.
Attention Natasha, there’s good news:
J.J., Jr. can still be indicted for attempting to bribe Robert and Rod Blagojevich.
And that good news gets better: Robert Blagojevich is now willing to co-operate with the feds and help prove J.J., Jr.’s role in the attempted bribery. Yes, that’s right, Natasha. The time is ripe to harvest the truth.
So, will the Times join IP2P and Robert Blagojevich in their call for acting U.S. Attorney Gary Shapiro to indict Jesse Jackson Jr.?
Gary S. Shapiro
We await your response. But, realistically, we only expect to hear the sound of crickets.
Why?
Because the Chicago Sun Times, and its faux reporters, are complicit in the Chicagogate cover-up as the once-credible, dead-tree news outlet continues to mislead it readers about the Blagojevich saga.
Robert Blagojevich has come clean during an interview with CNSNews.comreporter Barbara Hollingsworth. Blagojevich told Hollingsworth that Jesse Jackson, Jr. offered a "bribe" to him and his brother, Rod Blagojevich, for the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.
And, that it's time for the U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Illinois to charge him with that crime.
Well, it doesn't get any simpler than that, folks.
Robert Blagojevich just handed Jesse Jackson, Jr. to the feds on a silver platter for attempting to purchase a seat in the U.S. Senate.
The only question that remains is this:
Will Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder allow acting U.S. Attorney Gary S. Shapiro to enforce the law, and indict Jackson?
Heads up reporting at CNSNews.com sets them apart from the rest of the media. CNS News is the only media outlet that picked up on what is the most important story surrounding the Blagojevich appellate brief filed with the court on Monday, July 15, 2013. THE TAPES! (You know, the ones that Blagojevich wants played and only Tribune reporters John Chase and Jeff Coen have copies of)
So, while the MSM put their stenographers on Blago's appeal, CNS News, who employs real Journalists, came away with an important story everyone else in the media is missing.
CNS News Excerpt:
Blagojevich’s lawyers also claimed that Zagel “misled” the jury regarding the legal standards needed to prove fraud, extortion and bribery by “excluding evidence of the defendant’s good faith” and “misstating" his defense in Zagel’s instructions to jurors.
Five days prior to Blagojevich’s arrest early on Dec. 9, 2008, Chicago Tribune reporter John Chase called his press aide and informed him that the governor was being wiretapped by the FBI. Blagojevich instructed his brother, Robert, to call off a meeting he had scheduled with Jackson supporter Raghu Nayak.
Prosecutors incorrectly characterized the cancelled meeting and Nayak’s “vague offer” to raise $1.5 million for Blagojevich if he appointed Jackson to the Senate as “soliciting a bribe,” Blagojevich’s lawyers contended.
However, the brief made no mention of the fact that Chase and fellow Tribune reporter Jeff Coen were given exclusive access to 1,800 pages of court-sealed federal wiretap transcripts that Blagojevich was not allowed to use for his defense. Blagojevich’s defense team never called Chase to testify about how he and Coen got access to the tapes, which they quoted extensively in their book, “Golden: How Rod Blagojevich Talked Himself Out of the Governor’s Office and into Prison,” which was published last fall.
While on their book tour, the authors insisted there was “no legal ban” on publishing excerpts from the same tapes that Zagel would not allow Blagojevich to play in court.
Neither reporter responded to an inquiry by CNSNews.com about whether they would make the tapes publicly available.
It's a matter of public record that Stuart Levine, who was the governments star witness in the Tony Rezko, Bill Cellini and, to some extent, Rod Blagojevich trials, often hosted sex parties where illegal drugs were consumed by attendees.
Remember, Stuart Levine became infamous for his kick-back schemes during U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's Operation Board Games.
Levine could get you an invitation to the White House Christmas party, and he was a major player in an ongoing pay-to-play scheme that placed government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the hands of those he,and his criminal public official partners, deemed worthy.
Now, knowing Stuart Levine, and knowing that he hosted drug and sex parties for years, ask yourself this: How many public officials do you suppose the Department of Justice can tell what to do, and what to think, because they know of their attendance at those parties?
You see, the old slogan in Chicago was: "It's not what you know; it's who you know." The new slogan is, "It's not who you know; it's what you know about who you know."
During the news about the Obama regime spying on the press, don't neglect this question: Why hasn't the Inspector General asked John Chase and the Chicago Tribunewho in the federal government is leaking sealed information to them?
Has the Office of the Inspector General opened an investigation of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and the U.S. Attorneys Office Northern Dist of Illinois pertaining to leaks from that office to the Chicago Tribune?
(Name Redacted)
-----Original Message-----
From:<redacted>
To: William J Birney (OPR)
Sent: 2013-06-05 15:40:21 +0000
Subject: OPR Investigation
Mr. William J. Birney
Has the Office of Professional Responsibility or the Inspector Generals Office opened an investigation into the serious DOJ leaks that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald talked about in his press conference, as noted in the Illinois pay-to-play article below?
(Name redacted)
-----Original Message-----
From: <redacted>
To: William J Birney (OPR)
Sent: 2013-06-01 19:56:53 +0000
Subject: Former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald takes the Fifth
Former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald takes the Fifth
Former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is a close, personal friend of Obama's choice to be the next FBI Director, James Comey, refuses to answer questions pertaining to the leaks from his U.S. Attorney’s Office to the Chicago Tribune.
The next words out of Patrick Fitzgerald's mouth were incredible – as in not credible.
He said the leak was information he knew, so he couldn’t investigate the leak, nor did he know who could or would.
In other words: Because I might be the leaker and cannot investigate myself, I’m not going to do anything. And because I don’t know who to call to investigate me, I can’t ask anyone to investigate me.
The recipient of the leak, and the man who called Rod Blagojevich's people to warn them that Blago was being recorded, was Tribune reporter John Chase. Chase was sitting three feet in front of Fitzgerald when Fitzgerald made the incredible comments in a press conference.
John Chase
All the while, the Chicago Media was…silent. Are they complicit, incompetent, or both?
Patrick Fitzgerald once said, "The truth is the engine of our judicial system. If you compromise the truth, the whole process is lost." That was when he wanted Scooter libby to go to jail for lying to the government.
When a citizen lies to a U.S. Attorney, they go to jail.