The Blagojevich Brothers: Rob vs Rod (Part I)
July 19, 2010 at 9:17 pm
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The defense did not score a clear knock-out punch today when Rob Blagojevich took the stand. There were times when he sounded pretty good, where his unequivocal denials seemed to come from conviction and resonated well. But there were some definite and well-defined problems.
First, in a general sense, whereas the know-nothing defense might work for Rod, it is not likely to be very effective for brother Rob. Through phone calls and testimony, we’ve heard that Governor Blagojevich was often an absentee leader, that he would be given to angry rants, and that he often appeared to be delusional about himself, his office and his position in the political arena. But with Rob, we have learned that he ran a bank, that he commanded hundreds of men in his over twenty years of military service, that he was the CEO of a securities firm—where he was tasked with cleaning up ethical breaches—and that he built his own successful real estate business. He was also on the Boards of the American Red Cross and an offshoot branch of the YMCA that develops programs for under-privileged kids.
With this background and its many inherent competencies, it is difficult to believe that he came to work for Rod Blagojevich as his head fundraiser, and that he never had any idea of what kind of legislative initiatives Rod Blagojevich was involved in, and what connections the various (fundraising) contacts he was supplied with had with the administration. His denials of wrong-doing may possibly be true—only he and Rod and some of the cooperating witnesses would know for sure—but it is simply not plausible that this man of great means and ability ran the fundraising operation as some kind of underling flunkey in the corner of a boiler room. But that is what his testimony would have the jury believe.
There was a second problem, which had the aura of a big fib being told in the courtroom today. Maybe the jury won’t remember—there’ve been a lot of names and activities to sort out—but Rob said that the Governor made “a deliberate effort” to keep him separate from state politics. According to his testimony, Rob was told, “We don’t mix fundraising and government.”
Rob Blagojevich was officially the head of Friends of Blagojevich (FOB). Do you think the jury might remember someone else who was the head of the governor’s fund raising organization? Perhaps a guy named Chris Kelly. Via previous testimony, Kelly was listed as being present in many, many meetings, where everything was discussed, from political agendas to board appointments to fundraising. Did Rod Blagojevich make a fundamental change in policy before brother Rob came on board? Did he say, “We don’t mix government and politics anymore?” It appears to be a major flaw in Rob Blagojevich’s testimony that undermines the general veracity of his appearance on the stand.
And finally, while admittedly nervous on the witness stand, some of his testimony sounded hedged. When his attorney, Michael Ettinger, asked him directly about whether he talked to Children’s Memorial Hospital about a pediatric rate increase, he did not confidently say, “No,” or as he sometimes said, “Absolutely not.” But instead, he said, “Not particularly. No.” So he didn’t particularly talk to the Hospital about the rate increase that he said he knew nothing about?
These fundamental problems with Rob Blagojevich’s testimony seemed to get worse as the day wore on, and the magnification of his problems came before the prosecutor showed up to take a crack at him by doing the Sherlock Holmes thing and putting a real magnifying glass on his testimony.
In one call, Rob is talking with great familiarity about Illinois politicians, people who might be candidates for the vacant senate seat. He said, “These are the kinds of people who maneuver through the path of least resistance.” He appears to be telling the Governor, with great passion, that he must be sure to get something for the senate appointment, and he seems to know the relative value of each candidate. So much for the know-nothing-I’m-just-the-fundraising-brother-who-doesn’t-know-anything-about-what-my-other-brother-the-Governor-does defense.
And then came the most disturbing, most damaging call of the day, helpfully played by the defense (they couldn’t help but to play it as the call itself is a charge in the indictment). After going over the situation again which concerns the Indian community, “accelerated fundraising” and Jesse Jackson Jr.—specifically an overture made to the Governor from Raghu Nayak—a long call is played that features the brothers discussing the senate. To digress for a moment, this call was supposed to have been taken by Rob while he was out with his wife at Starbucks, which was the sole reason why Julie Blagojevich was called to the stand in the morning. Julie figures into the yarn because she was homebound when she was in Chicago, and hadn’t gotten out much, so according to the spin, Rob was annoyed that he had to talk to Rod and tried to get him off the call. This story works out pretty good in explaining the beginning of the call, where Rob seems to be saying, “Yup,” “Right and “Uh-huh,” to his brother to move things along, but suddenly, the call turns out to be more substantive and the story kind of falls apart with loquacious brothers chatting on and on about how to sell a senate seat. Particularly, Rob Blagojevich says, on the witness stand rather implausibly, that if the Governor were to appoint Jesse Jackson Jr. to the Senate, he’ll need to “focus” himself on the Black community. And I can’t think of any better way to say it, but that’s kind of stupid. First, it was well-known—even for a supposedly political neophyte like Rob—that Rod had his strongest support in the African American community, and furthermore, doesn’t it make much more sense that he would need to focus on the Black community if he DID NOT pick Jesse Jackson Jr. or any African-American. And then comes this fantastical notion, hatched between the brothers Blagojevich, to tell Nayak—the man who is offering as much as $1.5 million for a Jackson Jr. appointment—that his candidate has been “elevated.”
Why would any sane, rational people, who were not involved in some sort of criminal activity want to meet with this guy to tell him his candidate has been moved up? At some point, Rod says, “If there is tangible political support” they should start showing it now, and Rob Blagojevich, the former banker, CEO of a securities firm and current real estate magnate, said he didn’t know what Rod meant when he said “tangible political support.” The tale ends with the two of them setting up a meeting with the cash-rich Nayak, to give him the good news about Jesse Jackson Jr. but before the meeting comes up it is postponed when it is learned that the investigation is getting hot and there are reports that lobbyist Wyma might be wearing a wire.
After several hours of listening to a man who probably wished he had never come up from Nashville to help his brother, especially a brother who was being investigated, and he probably also wished he hadn’t done a few things he did during his short sojourn at the helm of FOB, it was the government’s turn. Christopher Niewoehner came out wielding the Damoclean Sword over the bobbing head of Rob Blagojevich, the same sword Rob had once used to describe what was hanging over his brother. Two and a half years later, it’s still there. The cross-examination is still ongoing, but in the hour that Niewoehner had, he discussed Rob’s one-time ambition of helping his brother out by exchanging a senate seat for Obama making an investigation go away. Although he denied a concrete link between the two things, Rob did not deny that these things were goals of his: Getting maximum value for the senate seat and making an investigation go away. And this is already problematic, because the hired fundraising gun, who supposedly was unaware of the Blagojevich’s administration’s politics and policies, never should have had much thought about the senate seat. But he did.
Rob Blagojevich is still on the stand, and still undergoing a couple of very tough days. So to be fair and to be clear, I am not convinced that Rob Blagojevich wasn’t a good and decent man who got caught up in an era of silliness that began a quick chain-reaction that led to him being on the stand, testifying in his own defense. From the gallery, I don’t think he was entirely honest today about some things he wished he hadn’t done, or wished he hadn’t said, but I’m not sure that his part in this drama wasn’t unavoidable and that he ever had criminal intentions in mind. So having said this, it is not easy to see into the minds of the jury. They could see the obvious gaffes and holes in the story, as pointed out in today’s report, or they could see it as the unavoidable meanderings of a man caught up in something kind of silly. The other option is that it might all hinge on Rod Blagojevich. If the jury thinks he is guilty of most or all crimes, than they may not be inclined to let his brother’s complicity slide, but if they find the Governor not guilty or all or most of the charges, then they’ll probably sweep away brother Rob’s as well.
Memo to Governor Blagojevich (er…Defendant Blagojevich to the prosecutors)
In the case of the USA vs. Richard Scrushy and Don Siegelman, Mr. Scrushy had a lawyer with some rather high-powered credentials. Fred Gray had once defended Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, and even the Tuskegee Boys case. It was a resume that played particularly well in Montgomery, Alabama. But in the closing arguments of the case, when his voice rose to a thundering crescendo, he beseeched the jury to return a not-guilty verdict, so Richard Scrushy could say, “Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, I’m free at last.” The courtroom was silent but there was a resounding thud. Scrushy had been acquitted of a $3 billion fraud in Birmingham, and he was on trial in Montgomery for bribery. Whatever he was—not guilty or guilty or railroaded—and whatever he had become in his late-game return to religious fervor, he was not Martin Luther King Jr. It is unlikely that Martin Luther King Jr. will ever be a good symbol for anything that has fraud or bribery at its core. The courthouses in Birmingham and Montgomery were all about avarice and greed and a corporation that had gone out of control. So it is in Chicago, with Mr. Governor Blagojevich, you are not Mahatma Gandhi, you are not the blacker-than-Obama candidate of the people, you are not Sherlock Holmes or a host of other greater than great characters, but you are perhaps a politician who was pushed a bit into unfamiliar territory, and then reaching in too grand an arc, you rode a wave that ended in this drab brown courtroom. Maybe for that you’re like many of us who once had dreams and somehow became tangled up in our own ambitions. Like most of us, you are not really like those great men as much as you might have wanted to be, but in a world that unraveled too fast, you did the best you could as a human. If you still want to talk to us, to the jury, and you remember your kinship—not with the Ghandi’s, the King’s—but more with the faces in the crowd, you might do alright. People might actually listen to you.
Did someone say testify?
I never tend to get caught up in the coy back-and-forth of the will-he-or-won’t he testify game that seems to go with every trial I am at. Both sides, and especially the defense, always seem to enjoy toying with the proposition and making the media or sometimes the prosecution snap at their treats like swarming minnows after chum. Before we broke this evening, the defense mentioned to Zagel that they had given him two definite witnesses and two probables, and the judge was informed that this status has not changed. The two definites are John Filan and (I think) and FBI agent. Could the other two be Patti and Rod? Furthermore, the rumblings about a fair trial being raised by Adam Sr. and the defense along with the burgeoning number of mistrials and complaints to Zagel could be parlayed into an excuse to not put Rod on. But on the other hand, Zagel has indicated that he fully expects Rod to testify in order to make the “state of mind” theory being pushed by the defense work. And although I don’t think most of the charges are strong, they are not solidly in the defense-column. Lastly, as indicated above, it does not appear that Rob Blagojevich is helping either brother’s case at the moment.
[ Stay tuned—should get interesting. As always you can watch it here with me…]
First, in a general sense, whereas the know-nothing defense might work for Rod, it is not likely to be very effective for brother Rob. Through phone calls and testimony, we’ve heard that Governor Blagojevich was often an absentee leader, that he would be given to angry rants, and that he often appeared to be delusional about himself, his office and his position in the political arena. But with Rob, we have learned that he ran a bank, that he commanded hundreds of men in his over twenty years of military service, that he was the CEO of a securities firm—where he was tasked with cleaning up ethical breaches—and that he built his own successful real estate business. He was also on the Boards of the American Red Cross and an offshoot branch of the YMCA that develops programs for under-privileged kids.
With this background and its many inherent competencies, it is difficult to believe that he came to work for Rod Blagojevich as his head fundraiser, and that he never had any idea of what kind of legislative initiatives Rod Blagojevich was involved in, and what connections the various (fundraising) contacts he was supplied with had with the administration. His denials of wrong-doing may possibly be true—only he and Rod and some of the cooperating witnesses would know for sure—but it is simply not plausible that this man of great means and ability ran the fundraising operation as some kind of underling flunkey in the corner of a boiler room. But that is what his testimony would have the jury believe.
There was a second problem, which had the aura of a big fib being told in the courtroom today. Maybe the jury won’t remember—there’ve been a lot of names and activities to sort out—but Rob said that the Governor made “a deliberate effort” to keep him separate from state politics. According to his testimony, Rob was told, “We don’t mix fundraising and government.”
Rob Blagojevich was officially the head of Friends of Blagojevich (FOB). Do you think the jury might remember someone else who was the head of the governor’s fund raising organization? Perhaps a guy named Chris Kelly. Via previous testimony, Kelly was listed as being present in many, many meetings, where everything was discussed, from political agendas to board appointments to fundraising. Did Rod Blagojevich make a fundamental change in policy before brother Rob came on board? Did he say, “We don’t mix government and politics anymore?” It appears to be a major flaw in Rob Blagojevich’s testimony that undermines the general veracity of his appearance on the stand.
And finally, while admittedly nervous on the witness stand, some of his testimony sounded hedged. When his attorney, Michael Ettinger, asked him directly about whether he talked to Children’s Memorial Hospital about a pediatric rate increase, he did not confidently say, “No,” or as he sometimes said, “Absolutely not.” But instead, he said, “Not particularly. No.” So he didn’t particularly talk to the Hospital about the rate increase that he said he knew nothing about?
These fundamental problems with Rob Blagojevich’s testimony seemed to get worse as the day wore on, and the magnification of his problems came before the prosecutor showed up to take a crack at him by doing the Sherlock Holmes thing and putting a real magnifying glass on his testimony.
In one call, Rob is talking with great familiarity about Illinois politicians, people who might be candidates for the vacant senate seat. He said, “These are the kinds of people who maneuver through the path of least resistance.” He appears to be telling the Governor, with great passion, that he must be sure to get something for the senate appointment, and he seems to know the relative value of each candidate. So much for the know-nothing-I’m-just-the-fundraising-brother-who-doesn’t-know-anything-about-what-my-other-brother-the-Governor-does defense.
And then came the most disturbing, most damaging call of the day, helpfully played by the defense (they couldn’t help but to play it as the call itself is a charge in the indictment). After going over the situation again which concerns the Indian community, “accelerated fundraising” and Jesse Jackson Jr.—specifically an overture made to the Governor from Raghu Nayak—a long call is played that features the brothers discussing the senate. To digress for a moment, this call was supposed to have been taken by Rob while he was out with his wife at Starbucks, which was the sole reason why Julie Blagojevich was called to the stand in the morning. Julie figures into the yarn because she was homebound when she was in Chicago, and hadn’t gotten out much, so according to the spin, Rob was annoyed that he had to talk to Rod and tried to get him off the call. This story works out pretty good in explaining the beginning of the call, where Rob seems to be saying, “Yup,” “Right and “Uh-huh,” to his brother to move things along, but suddenly, the call turns out to be more substantive and the story kind of falls apart with loquacious brothers chatting on and on about how to sell a senate seat. Particularly, Rob Blagojevich says, on the witness stand rather implausibly, that if the Governor were to appoint Jesse Jackson Jr. to the Senate, he’ll need to “focus” himself on the Black community. And I can’t think of any better way to say it, but that’s kind of stupid. First, it was well-known—even for a supposedly political neophyte like Rob—that Rod had his strongest support in the African American community, and furthermore, doesn’t it make much more sense that he would need to focus on the Black community if he DID NOT pick Jesse Jackson Jr. or any African-American. And then comes this fantastical notion, hatched between the brothers Blagojevich, to tell Nayak—the man who is offering as much as $1.5 million for a Jackson Jr. appointment—that his candidate has been “elevated.”
Why would any sane, rational people, who were not involved in some sort of criminal activity want to meet with this guy to tell him his candidate has been moved up? At some point, Rod says, “If there is tangible political support” they should start showing it now, and Rob Blagojevich, the former banker, CEO of a securities firm and current real estate magnate, said he didn’t know what Rod meant when he said “tangible political support.” The tale ends with the two of them setting up a meeting with the cash-rich Nayak, to give him the good news about Jesse Jackson Jr. but before the meeting comes up it is postponed when it is learned that the investigation is getting hot and there are reports that lobbyist Wyma might be wearing a wire.
After several hours of listening to a man who probably wished he had never come up from Nashville to help his brother, especially a brother who was being investigated, and he probably also wished he hadn’t done a few things he did during his short sojourn at the helm of FOB, it was the government’s turn. Christopher Niewoehner came out wielding the Damoclean Sword over the bobbing head of Rob Blagojevich, the same sword Rob had once used to describe what was hanging over his brother. Two and a half years later, it’s still there. The cross-examination is still ongoing, but in the hour that Niewoehner had, he discussed Rob’s one-time ambition of helping his brother out by exchanging a senate seat for Obama making an investigation go away. Although he denied a concrete link between the two things, Rob did not deny that these things were goals of his: Getting maximum value for the senate seat and making an investigation go away. And this is already problematic, because the hired fundraising gun, who supposedly was unaware of the Blagojevich’s administration’s politics and policies, never should have had much thought about the senate seat. But he did.
Rob Blagojevich is still on the stand, and still undergoing a couple of very tough days. So to be fair and to be clear, I am not convinced that Rob Blagojevich wasn’t a good and decent man who got caught up in an era of silliness that began a quick chain-reaction that led to him being on the stand, testifying in his own defense. From the gallery, I don’t think he was entirely honest today about some things he wished he hadn’t done, or wished he hadn’t said, but I’m not sure that his part in this drama wasn’t unavoidable and that he ever had criminal intentions in mind. So having said this, it is not easy to see into the minds of the jury. They could see the obvious gaffes and holes in the story, as pointed out in today’s report, or they could see it as the unavoidable meanderings of a man caught up in something kind of silly. The other option is that it might all hinge on Rod Blagojevich. If the jury thinks he is guilty of most or all crimes, than they may not be inclined to let his brother’s complicity slide, but if they find the Governor not guilty or all or most of the charges, then they’ll probably sweep away brother Rob’s as well.
Memo to Governor Blagojevich (er…Defendant Blagojevich to the prosecutors)
In the case of the USA vs. Richard Scrushy and Don Siegelman, Mr. Scrushy had a lawyer with some rather high-powered credentials. Fred Gray had once defended Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, and even the Tuskegee Boys case. It was a resume that played particularly well in Montgomery, Alabama. But in the closing arguments of the case, when his voice rose to a thundering crescendo, he beseeched the jury to return a not-guilty verdict, so Richard Scrushy could say, “Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, I’m free at last.” The courtroom was silent but there was a resounding thud. Scrushy had been acquitted of a $3 billion fraud in Birmingham, and he was on trial in Montgomery for bribery. Whatever he was—not guilty or guilty or railroaded—and whatever he had become in his late-game return to religious fervor, he was not Martin Luther King Jr. It is unlikely that Martin Luther King Jr. will ever be a good symbol for anything that has fraud or bribery at its core. The courthouses in Birmingham and Montgomery were all about avarice and greed and a corporation that had gone out of control. So it is in Chicago, with Mr. Governor Blagojevich, you are not Mahatma Gandhi, you are not the blacker-than-Obama candidate of the people, you are not Sherlock Holmes or a host of other greater than great characters, but you are perhaps a politician who was pushed a bit into unfamiliar territory, and then reaching in too grand an arc, you rode a wave that ended in this drab brown courtroom. Maybe for that you’re like many of us who once had dreams and somehow became tangled up in our own ambitions. Like most of us, you are not really like those great men as much as you might have wanted to be, but in a world that unraveled too fast, you did the best you could as a human. If you still want to talk to us, to the jury, and you remember your kinship—not with the Ghandi’s, the King’s—but more with the faces in the crowd, you might do alright. People might actually listen to you.
Did someone say testify?
I never tend to get caught up in the coy back-and-forth of the will-he-or-won’t he testify game that seems to go with every trial I am at. Both sides, and especially the defense, always seem to enjoy toying with the proposition and making the media or sometimes the prosecution snap at their treats like swarming minnows after chum. Before we broke this evening, the defense mentioned to Zagel that they had given him two definite witnesses and two probables, and the judge was informed that this status has not changed. The two definites are John Filan and (I think) and FBI agent. Could the other two be Patti and Rod? Furthermore, the rumblings about a fair trial being raised by Adam Sr. and the defense along with the burgeoning number of mistrials and complaints to Zagel could be parlayed into an excuse to not put Rod on. But on the other hand, Zagel has indicated that he fully expects Rod to testify in order to make the “state of mind” theory being pushed by the defense work. And although I don’t think most of the charges are strong, they are not solidly in the defense-column. Lastly, as indicated above, it does not appear that Rob Blagojevich is helping either brother’s case at the moment.
[ Stay tuned—should get interesting. As always you can watch it here with me…]
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