Report from Chicago

At the break, Rod Blagojevich spotted a young woman watching the trial from the gallery. He said, “If I’d have known you then, we would’ve talked about you on those calls.” He smiles in that in that easy tight lipped-way he has, letting her enjoy the moment. In days past, before he would swerve right and left past the wreckage of a career, there might have been the part where he would let his public appreciate his amiability, a long moment that would last until a decision would form in their minds and a donation would be forthcoming. But the girl and her mother just giggled and he ambled back to talk with his attorneys huddled around a table in the near-empty courtroom. Hours later, at lunch, Blagojevich would work the crowd, breaking out of the food line to greet some supporters. On the way to his table, he spots some young women looking his way. “Are you jurors?” he asks. They shake their heads. “Then hello,” he says. And so it goes in an off-center little world, an enclosure floating above that other world. Taste of Chicago is going on down there, through the Fourth.

Loose ends: The direct exam of John Harris comes to an end

In the morning’s session, Assistant US Attorney Hamilton was tying up a few loose ends before handing Blagojevich’s former Chief-of-Staff over to the defense.

One of those loose ends was the horse-track legislation, in which the prosecutor referred to a call played last week. It was an interesting exchange but perhaps not for the reasons Hamilton intended. Harris described the conversation with his good friend, Bill Quinlan, the administration’s counsel, in which Quinlan apparently used some of those code words to confirm that “it” was what he had suspected, that Blagojevich was presumably waiting for a donation before signing the racetrack bill. But then he said something curious. Harris said he decided not to have future conversations about this with Governor Blagojevich because the matter was solely related to discussions between the Governor and Lon Monk. So to characterize this situation, it was like Harris had said: “I’m going to leave the matter of this legislation to be discussed between the Governor and the paid lobbyist who represents racetrack interests. After all, it has nothing to do with me because I’m just the administration’s Chief-of-Staff.” People have often pointed out the crazy things Blagojevich has done or said, but some of the people around him did or said some nutty things too.

Other loose ends concerned Blagojevich considering lots of names that he might appoint for Obama’s vacant senate seat. Some of his logic and methodology might have been a tad bit silly, but it didn’t seem that this loose end did much to help the government’s case. As we’ll see, the defense will exploit this later.

Blagojevich was apparently more than a little interested in nominating Oprah Winfrey. Even when Harris tells him that this idea is over-the-top, Blagojevich argues for Winfrey’s viability as a legitimate choice. He also mentioned other names, and said it was important that he name an African-American, preferably a woman. Most of these names would not get him much in the way of benefits. Harris pointed out—during this loose-end session and later, during the defense’s cross—that appointing an African-American was important to Blagojevich if he wanted to get re-elected as governor. But this political consideration is far from illegal.

Added to the mix was a Jesse Jackson Jr. a name Blagojevich had earlier ruled out, which was the prosecutor’s point—that he was added into back into the mix. The idea was that Jackson was supposed to be considered because his supporters were offering tangible things, but this notion was somewhat diluted when his candid conversations only had Jackson listed amongst a host of other names. At no time did Blagojevich say unequivocally that he has decided on Congressman Jackson. Not only that, throughout this last drive-home-the-point call, Blagojevich appears to be searching for other names he could consider. If remuneration and benefits were his primary consideration, and if there was some possibility that the benefits were centered on Jackson Jr. it would seem his search would have been over, and the Congressman would be on top of his list. But he wasn’t. The Feds got tired of waiting. Blagojevich was arrested a couple of days later.

Name dropping at the trial

The media loves it when the trial gets punched up by an appearance from President Obama because it becomes more than the usual ho-hum Chicago corruption trial, but instead, it becomes a happening of national importance. Today’s foray into the White House came when Harris related how the State Ethics bill was passed in Illinois. The bill prevented a company which does over $25,000 of business with the state to donate to the sitting governor’s campaign fund. Blagojevich amendatorily vetoed the bill, an Illinois procedure that allows the governor to change a bill and sent it back. He changed it to make the bill apply to not only the governor, but any elected state government official.

Led by his nemesis, Michael Madigan, the Speaker of the State House, the amendatory veto was overridden in the House. This was not a problem for Blagojevich because his administration had a deal with Emil Jones, the President of the Senate. Jones had promised not to call the bill which would kill the veto effort. But the plan fell apart when Emil Jones got a call from Senator and then Democratic presidential nominee,  Barack Obama. He was supposed to have asked Jones to call the bill so it would be passed in its original form. Obama was apparently afraid that foot-dragging on ethics legislation, in his home state of Illinois, could hurt his presidential aspirations. Jones called the bill, the veto was overridden, Obama was elected President, Blagojevich was arrested, and it all would eventually meet in a courtroom.

That’s the President Obama who left a senate seat behind in Illinois. The defense expanded the field on this charge from the narrow peephole the prosecution was holding up for the jury to peer through. Instead of a couple names, like Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Valerie Jarrett, they were instead regaled with a host of names that Blagojevich had ruminated on. At the Governor’s direction, Harris actually consulted a book entitled Who’s Who in Black Chicago, in order to expand the viable number of African-American candidates. The book was shown to Harris in order to identify his resource, and it still had red sticky notes on the pages like someone’s cookie cookbook at the holidays.

Something else transpired during this particular line of testimony. In front of a visually distraught Judge Zagel, Adam Sr. was able to supply political context—as in politics-as-usual—to the jury. And not only just the usual politics, but the Blagojevich brand of populist politics that was good for winning the statehouse twice.  At one point, Adam Sr. pointed at the jury as he said that Blagojevich “did not want to raise taxes on the working people of Illinois.”

Politics slips in

Assistant US Attorney Carrie Hamilton had a handful of objections sustained during this portion of questioning, but the message was getting through. She probably could have easily had more objections sustained but it appears she kind of gave up. During the exchange, Zagel leaned forward—uncharacteristic and unusual for the judge—and he stared toward Adam Sr. or past him at Hamilton, waiting for objections that never came. He nervously tapped the tips of his spread fingers together, visibly uncomfortable with what Adam Sr. had been able to slip into his courtroom.

It was an interesting display and an interesting exchange, but most of the press wasn’t there to see it as they were either lounging in the video-less overflow-room downstairs, or they had scurried off to file their partials. Only about a third of the press passes were being used by the time of this display, as most of the press gallery sat empty. Oh well. I’m here every day if you want to watch the trial with me.

The defense’s case

I’m sure the defense neither reads me nor cares what I write, but they did indeed use the spin I suggested might work for both the Tribune-Cubs charge and the selling of the senate seat charge. And did I mention that the defense somehow shoehorned political context into the trial? The introduction of political context has been previously written about on these pages as something the defense would have to do in order for their side to have a chance. It was overall a pretty good day for the defense.

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Finally, and on a personal note, today was the third birthday I have spent in the last six, in which I was sitting in a courtroom. Yeah, I know I should get a life. All I know is those hardwood benches somehow seem to have become harder over the last six years. At least that’s what my knees and back say.

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Stay tuned. More of the Harris cross tomorrow.

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The Supreme Court makes a decision

In the morning, before the session began, the Supreme Court came back with a ruling on honest services fraud statutes. The high court did not declare the law unconstitutional, throwing it completely out, as some observers thought they might, but instead, narrowed the scope of the law to only include direct links to bribery and extortion.

A legal source I have talked to, who has tried at least one case that included honest services fraud charges, said that the High Court will generally try to salvage a statue rather than completely strike it. This is in keeping with allowing the people—through representation in Congress—to make laws while guarding constitutional application of those laws. While the Court noted a push to eliminate the law—and some on the court have shown an inclination to do that—they have instead narrowed the scope of the law to bribery and kickbacks. This means that many of the charges that make up the framework of the Blagojevich case would still be applicable. However, I am told that the Supreme Court may not be done with their honest services work, and the next topic they will address is to define exactly—in less vague terms—what constitutes a bribe or a kickback. So whereas Blagojevich and his team will not likely get immediate relief in the case at hand, his situation may eventually be affected by future decisions. For instance, some of the bribery counts in the indictment were not direct attempts and money never changed hands.

 The attorneys were immediately asking to be heard in the morning, beginning by saying, “As you are probably aware, the Supreme Court has…” And Zagel responded by saying, “You mean this ruling I have in my left hand,” holding up the 114 page ruling.

An expected, the defense filed a motion for a continuance for at least a couple of days to study the ruling—and presumably to give Zagel a chance to study it as well—but also as expected, the request was summarily denied. In addressing the issue at the beginning and the end of the day, Zagel noted that the Supreme Court did not strike the statute—finding it unconstitutional—but instead limited it as noted above. He also said that even if some counts are affected, the facts of the case will not change so there is no reason to stop calling and examining witnesses.

The death knell: Marginalization

With his political fortunes crumbling, an increasingly desperate and furtive Rod Blagojevich was hearing the death knell clang in his head as he raced to avoid being marginalized. While sometimes still talking about a run for the highest office in the land—the President of the United States—and even with his advisors talking about preserving Blagojevich’s political fortunes when they knew the possibilities were limited at best, it was over. The death knell was sounding and he must’ve known it in his heart.

In the end, he was a desperate man, but he was also the governor of the fifth most populated state in America, and he was surrounded by people who should have known exactly what was going on, but had their own fortunes and agendas to think of. Both Lon Monk and John Harris, Blagojevich’s two Chiefs-of-Staff, at times appear to have approached their job and their boss with wide-eyed wonder, like Rod Blagojevich was a sharply focused Machiavellian mastermind over a political operation in which they had no control of. But there is a picture emerging of a nearly inept Blagojevich flailing about, and being surrounded by people who were not giving him competent advise, but instead, they were frequently lying to him. Over and over, they’re lying to him.

What could have been the centerpiece of the trial, the place where an observer can almost audibly hear the death knell as the prosecution plays a wire-tapped tape, Blagojevich recalls his career, the career he knows is now in shambles. He says that Congress was never a means in itself, it was “a climb up the corporate ladder.” And he says he gave it up to be more vital. And then he launched into a monologue. He says, “…for you to say I value being governor, you have to go into value. I need freedom. I made my family vulnerable.” Behind this comment is that Rezko-thing, the death knell he is hearing in his head and he knows what the bell means. It is failure. It is ruin. It is letting down those who were closest to him. And then he lays it out, “Never again do I ever screw my kids and family. I got to fix this.” While Patti is crying from her bench, he goes on to talk about his daughters who will soon be college-aged and facing an uncertain future. He is already being buried in a sea of debt over mounting legal bills. He is a who man has failed at everything that is important to him and it is an impassioned speech, even if he never had any idea that his comments would one day be played in open court.

Of course the prosecution will use this taped blood-letting as motive, which is what they should do, showing that the defendant was so desperate to fix his financial situation that he was willing to go to any lengths, up to and included criminal schemes. But at the same time there is a pathetic irrationality about the whole thing that reveals if you squint a little bit, if you listen to the death knell getting louder and louder, his behavior in the waning months of 2008 could have been the rants and raves of desperation, instead of well-crafted plans that really could actually come to fruition.

Throughout these schemes, it is revealed that the people who surrounded the governor either had their own agendas, or they were poor leaders who could not give competent advice to their boss because of their personal pursuits, or because they valued their job over the moral propriety of actually doing that job, or because they were weak leaders who wanted to avoid confrontation at all costs. On numerous occasions, John Harris lied to Rod Blagojevich, telling him he did something that he didn’t, or creating conversations that he thought would please the Governor, or giving Blagojevich information that he knew wasn’t true. When he was asked about these lies, by the prosecutor, he would often say, “I was buying myself more time.”

Blagojevich’s last months have to be set-up against a backdrop. Tony Rezko had been tried and convicted so much of the corruption that had gone on in and around Blagojevich’s administration had been codified and proved in a court of law. The Chicago Tribune was making increasingly vociferous pleas to impeach Blagojevich. His ratings in Illinois were flat-lining, showing some of the worst approval ratings for a sitting politician in history. And while something had gone terribly wrong with Blagojevich’s political climb, another shooting star came out of Illinois and went all the way to the White House. Besides giving Blagojevich a last-train-to-anywhere pie-in-the-sky out, it also had to have hurt.

During Harris’ week on the stand, we have heard that Blagojevich variously explored: a) Ambassadorships; b) Running a 501(c) (4) organization, funded by democratic billionaires—who assuredly had no idea they were part of Blagojevich’s golden parachute scheme any more than if I had wrapped my computer in tin foil and wanted Bill Gates to pour millions of dollars into my new computer security device—c) Running Change to Win, a workers organization of which he was disappointed to learn the director would only make around $150K; d) Cabinet positions, specifically either Commerce Secretary, or Secretary of Health and Human Services; e) Senator, by appointing himself to the Obama’s open senate seat; or f) Professor at University of Illinois, by stacking the board or trustees.

Along the way he was supposed to have extorted a racetrack executive for campaign funds, extorted the Chicago Tribune by threatening to block funding for a Chicago Cubs project (which was owned by the Tribune’s parent company). It was a busy few months.

He talks a lot about how much heat he is facing and how much he wants to get out of town, or as he often said, “get the fuck out of town,” which the prosecution uses to show that he is so on-edge, exploring almost anything in order to make things happen. But it is increasingly clear that nothing good is going to come out of this, and his staff members don’t want to tell him.

Briefly it never appears that he never acted on the ambassadorships. He apparently did tell someone whom he thought was an envoy from Barack Obama (although later Rahm Emanuel said that he was the only one authorized to speak for Obama) that he wanted a cabinet position. This meeting wasn’t wired and until we get the other party on the stand, we might not know exactly what happened here. Harris helpfully called the proposal a quid pro quo from the witness stand, but as a cooperating witness, he knows it will be better for him if everything is a quid quo pro. Would the governor’s Chief-of-Staff really let the governor go into a room and knowingly let him bribe an official? It is unlikely that neither of his two foundation-running ideas, which seemed to have plenty of egging-on by some of the people around him, ever became anything more than the ruminations of a desperate mind.

On the firing of the Tribune editorial board, it appears that Blagojevich made a passing reference to getting rid of the editorial writers who were screaming for his impeachment, and he mentioned the Cubs project. “What’s it worth to them?” he said. It never seemed to me that the reference was ever hatched into a full-blown structured plan, and it seems entirely plausible that Blagojevich was basically telling Harris that if the Tribune doesn’t give them some editorial support, or more specifically, if their editorials result in his impeachment and removal from office, they won’t get the money for the project that the Blagojevich administration has supported. Something’s got to break or those guys are going to lose their money. And Harris, for his part, comes back and tells Blagojevich that he did a really good job on that project and they’re going to fire their editorial board, of which the opportunistic Harris hopes might be a casualty of scheduled layoffs. Now he has lied to Blagojevich about what he has done, so future inquires put forth by Blagojevich are based not so much on his original rant, but on the lie told to him by Harris. I know people who have followed this situation for long enough to have settled opinions won’t believe me, but from the gallery and from afar, it is easier to see many of these acts as rants of desperation—exasperated by staff members bent on lying to Blagojevich, and not so much as bona fide criminal plots.

Cross-examination preview

Assistant US Attorney Carrie Hamilton has said that the direct examination of John Harris will end Monday morning.

Analyzing or previewing a cross examination will never be easy in Zagel’s courtroom because the judge has stated a desire to not let the defense use a prosecution witness for their own devices (this also means the defense will probably make more use of recalled witnesses than usual). I have seen trials where the defense’s case was mostly developed during the prosecution’s portion of the trial. It probably won’t be in this one.

So if any preview is possible, it might be best to look at general themes that might be developed and exploited, and not so much at particular points.

Look for all of the lies John Harris told—not so much to prosecutors or the feds but to Rod Blagojevich—to be thoroughly explored. Why did he lie? Was he lying to benefit himself or Blagojevich? Why didn’t he tell the truth? Why did he feel that he had to “buy time?”

Look for Harris’ understanding of the viability of Blagojevich’s various schemes to be explored. What was his chance of success? Were plans ever put in motion to implement this particular plan?

If Zagel allows the defense to explore Harris’ use of the term quid pro quo, they might ask why he let Blagojevich go to a meeting with the intention of offering a quid pro quo? He told Blagojevich not to directly mix the senate seat with the cabinet “ask” so why does he think Blagojevich did this? Why would anyone in his office think this was a good idea if it had a quid pro quo at the center of it?

And I’ll work up some more themes as we work through the weekend as a time for reflection.

A Question. Re: the Fed’s timing

This probably won’t come up in court because Zagel wouldn’t allow it, but why did the feds make the arrest when they did? Early in the post-arrest pre-trial timeline, Blagojevich raised this issue, saying they were so eager to get him the feds swooped in before any crimes were actually committed—Blagojevich would argue that this was because it would become clear that crimes were not going to be committed—and looking backward now, from the trial, it might be an issue worth revisiting.

The arrest came on December 9, 2008. The tapes tell us that he was planning to pick the Senator between December 15^th and December 24^th. The government said they had move in—or it was believed that they had to move—because it would be a messier situation if Blagojevich had consummated a deal, sold the senate seat and made the pick. But because everything was being monitored, they would have precisely known when the pick was imminent. If law enforcement is trying to catch a bank robber, wouldn’t it be better to catch the guy with the money in his hands, then rely on witnesses who say he would always rant that he was going to rob a bank. (“Those things are golden!”) With tapes rolling, why didn’t they (as Rod Blagojevich put it on one of those tapes) run the clock out and get’m red-handed? Of course there is more evidence and testimony to come in. Maybe it’ll become clear. Maybe it won’t.

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Nixon in the mirror

In a phone call a couple of days after the election of Barack Obama, Rod Blagojevich said, “I feel like Nixon after his re-election: angry, depressed…”

Funny he should mention that. Nixon was re-elected five months after burglars were apprehended breaking into the Watergate Hotel. After his landslide election, he was being hammered by the Washington Post, there were swirling rumors of a cover-up, of secret payments, and of out-of-control operatives. Later in this afternoon’s call, and in others, Blagojevich would go into expletive-filled rants against the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board, against the Madigan’s blocking his agenda, and against the investigation he said, “Stops him dead in his tracks.” Sometimes the tapes appear to contain semi-delusional musings, and sometimes, the dialog is overloaded with hyperbole, but this time, with his Nixon reference, it’s a pretty fair analogy.

And just like Nixon, Blagojevich might have been a man of great potential, but he had some fatal blindspots, flaws he would never fully be cognizant of, could never really appreciate or be able to understand. And here we are, listening to cooperating witnesses, playing tapes.

Dreaming of things to do with a senate seat in your pocket

Lots of tedious calls between Blagojevich and Harris amount to a lot of talk, but there’s not much there. Rod Blagojevich expressed interest in being the head of a foundation, hopefully well-paying. It was determined that a foundation would be best for his political and economic future. These two goals came up a number of times, but he never mentioned that he could use his skills to do something for people, or that there was anything more to this than money and power. It was kind of a big deal moment, even with his Valerie Jarrett bargaining chip. Big deal as in so what. It’s not like he was the first politician to hope for a position in return for a political favor. Our system would become porous and collapse if it were not for that arrangement. What is more of a big deal is the delusional nature of his quest and how there were people around him that must have known better, but with Obama’s senate seat, the Emperor had new clothes and no one was going to tell him no.

The prosecution is attempting to portray this furtive search as the prelude of something that would blossom into full-blown extortion. But they’re not there yet. Furthermore, Blagojevich continues to tout some of his credentials that might lead to him getting certain positions. For instance, he talks about getting a position that “speaks to the hard-working middle class,” or positions where he might use his record of supporting healthcare programs. The quest is quixotic because of his crumbling political fortunes, and for this reason, it is uncomfortable to listen in on his search from the future because besides knowing that the man on these calls will soon be arrested, it also seems absurd, when looking back at his situation, that anyone in his right mind would install a man with so much baggage in a President’s cabinet or put him in charge of a Foundation, and then pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars. It remains to be seen how the defense will spin this and develop their case, but his far-fetched hoping could be portrayed as delusional rants delivered to people who couldn’t bring themselves to tell the Governor, “No.”

Perspective

I had a quick vision this afternoon. In several calls we have had, either Blagojevich or one of the others made references to that “Rezko-thing.” So the courtroom shifted for a moment on a long afternoon, the expensive black suits dissolving into rumpled orange prison jumpsuits, and I saw the un-sentenced Tony Rezko holding his own court. He was telling one of his inmate colleagues that he was going to put in a good word for him for kitchen detail. And then he went back to his discussion. “Where was I,” he said, “oh yeah, I was trying to get some things done but I had this Blagojevich-thing.” He gestured to the inmates milling around in the yard, “And you see, that was the end of my career.” In court everything is a matter of perspective.

Zagel’s choice

Carrie Hamilton’s prosecutorial style for presenting the taped evidence to the jury is to play tracts from the tape, and then ask the witness questions about what had just been heard. It is tedious and reptitious as it is kind of like watching a show, and immediately afterward, having someone tell you what was just seeen. (Example from tape: “I want to make money then, you know, try to go out and make money.” Hamilton: “What did you understand him to say?” Witness: “He was saying he wanted to make money.” Occassionally, some points are made or underscored, but for the most part, there isn’t much new—or to drop into the legalese of the lawyers—the rehash doesn’t seem to have much probitive value. I tend to take pages and pages of notes, filling up legal pads, but I usually stop scribbling when she’s doing this or I would have two sets of notes about the same thing. Eventually, the defense finally made an objection over the repetive nature of the exam, and it was sustained. When they tried to stop Hamilton with a second objection, Zagel gave the defense an unholy choice: If he sustains the defense’s objection, then during the defense’s case, he would not allow the  defense to question witnesses about statements made on the tapes or to explore alternative interpretations. Although Zagel is an extremely proactive judge, it generally seems that he is fair and his arguments well-reasoned, but it seems to me from an extra-legal point of view, that this was not an equal trade-off. It doesn’t appear that rehashing everything a witness said twice is the same as exploring alternative meanings. But that was the ruling and the defense sat down.

The days ahead

John Harris is still on the stand. His direct examination is expected to go until next Monday. Stay tuned. I’ll be there.

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Blagojevich makes his entrance under the nervous eyes of the US Marshalls who keep him moving toward the courtroom. The lobby breaks into applause and he smiles, veering away from the Marshalls. “Hey Rod! Rod, over here.” A couple of kids are yelling excitedly from the chairs in the corner. “Where you from?” Blagojevich says. “Westwood,” the young man with the ball cap says. The man who was once the governor of the state—a few hours later we’ll hear him call the state a $58 billion corporation—and the man who was alleged to have wanted to stack the University of Illinois Board of trustees with associates so that he might perhaps land a teaching gig when he was out of office said, “If I was your teacher, you’d all get A’s.” Dreams come true.

There is a certain amount of pathos in Blagojevich, as both his apparitions and his physical presence wander through his trial. Five am mornings and endless multiple  lines and eight hours in a courtroom start to take their toll. Pads get filled. Pens run dry. Spend lunch resupplying at a Woolworth in the city down there. And after four o’clock on a long day of testimony, all the black and gray suits begin to fuzz out a bit. As the testimony drones on, there are a few moments of clarity about the strange world of Rod Blagojevich. Sometimes he’s a clown, a jester, a fool, warming-up the crowd and playing to his people. He married the daughter of a powerful Democratic Alderman and they’ve carried on a real romance that at times became uncomfortably intertwined in the statehouse, but it is a very real thing, an almost childlike teenaged love affair. (How do we know it’s not just a put-on for the trial? Nothing is more candid than the government wiretaps. Later on today, we’ll hear him speak lovingly to Patti on tape.) He was a Congressman. He ran for governor and won. Twice. Some of his closest advisors ended up being indicted and convicted, or they were indicted and got in line to testify against him. One didn’t survive. Some of his inner-circle didn’t really like him. (In today’s testimony, John Harris was asked why counsel Bill Quinlan asked Harris to come to President Obama’s victory rally. The answer was easy. Harris said it was so Quinlan didn’t have to be alone with Blagojevich.) Not satisfied with being just governor, perhaps not truly satisfied with anything, Blagojevich had a soaring desire to be the President of the United States. Was it a real aspiration? A serious ambition? Some of his aides seemed to think so as they talked about fattening his campaign war chest for a possible presidential run, if not at least for a third term as the governor of Illinois. But the tide had already turned against his future political career even as he steamed ahead like a mad pirate looking for lands near and far to conquer.

The man who would be a three-term governor, who would be the President, was under investigation from before he was sworn into office for his second term. One of the people closest to his administration—a fixture in what some of the witnesses called his kitchen cabinet—was indicted and eventually convicted. And whether or not he is guilty—criminally responsible—for some or all of the crimes he is accused: His pre-trial buildup, his reality show appearances, his courthouse antics, all paint a portrait of a man who is a bottomless pit, whose soul is the mirror of a deep and vast hole, and who desperately, insatiably, wants people to like him. He cares passionately about the State of Illinois, but it seems to be a passion deeply rooted in winning the approval of those who have benefitted from what he has brought them. And to those around his campaign, his obsession with fundraising may have been about political strength and viability, but in reality, his beat-everybody-at-fundraising thing was likely more about obtaining real viability as a person. I’ve seen this before or something similar. In the trial of corporate CEO Richard Scrushy, he displayed similar traits—it wasn’t just the money for him—he needed to beat the market projections for every quarter to prove that he wasn’t just a poor boy from Selma, Alabama. He was somebody. And Blagojevich too, overreaching beyond being a second-generation immigrant from the North Side of Chicago, he was somebody at last. But it would never be enough.

The pathetic nature of his plight came into sharp focus today through phone calls to his Chief-of-Staff, John Harris. The man who would be the President of the United States was angling variously for two cabinet positions, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of Commerce, a couple of fairly disparate positions. When he was told that the Commerce Secretary position would go to people with very strong economic credentials, people like corporate CEOs, the governor petulantly whined that as Governor of Illinois, he was the head of a $58 billion corporation. For Health and Human Services, Blagojevich touted his support for healthcare and the health programs he championed or implemented in Illinois. Albeit somewhat delusional, given his situation, this could be exploited into a mitigating circumstance as it shows that he actually believes that he has the credentials to be the Head of Health and Human Services. And to be fair, the secretaries of both departments—people eventually picked by Obama—were former state governors, although the commerce secretary also has a strong economic background to go with his political experience.

Maybe his staffers didn’t think he was serious at first or maybe they played along with Blagojevich because they had learned to ride the waves with him, but eventually he was told by John Harris that there was no way that Obama would appoint him to these cabinet level positions. The “Rezko thing” was mentioned, and Harris said it wouldn’t make political sense either. So maybe he’ll run for a third term, maybe he’ll run for president. It doesn’t look like he’ll get a cabinet level position in the administration, but what about one of those plumb ambassadorship positions. A call was played that has Rod and Patti Blagojevich discussing how much the ambassador of India gets paid, and they were apparently looking at the house they would get to live in if they were sent to New Delhi. Harris was trying to gently steer Blagojevich away from this ambition as well, suggesting that India would be too big of a trading partner for Blagojevich to get serious consideration. The two of them went through other possible ambassadorships that might interest him. One that was mentioned was Canada.

It was clear that Governor Blagojevich was like a restless teen who was trying to figure out what to do with his life. In the course of an afternoon, the teen might want to go to California and live in a lean-to on the beach, and in the next moment he decides that he  wants to be an astronaut. And then the kid finds a satchel of money, his golden ticket, and his dreams really start taking flight. Blagojevich’s golden ticket was Obama’s vacant senate seat. He knew it might be his ticket out, either via old-school political horse trading or new-school political arm twisting, but oddly enough he seemed to understand his bleak position in the matter. He called naming himself to the open seat his “Ace in the hole.” This is not because it would be the trump card, the tour de force, but because he knew his political position and clout had sunk so far that the fear he might name himself to the seat might be enough to squeeze any manner of favors out of the administration.

John Harris is still on the stand, by the time he’s done I’ll give a rendition that will hopefully make sense of the complicated web spun around Blagojevich’s golden ticket. The candidates discussed so far were: Valerie Jarrett (Obama’s choice)—who it was said would make Obama happy and the blacks happy but Blagojevich often wondered aloud what he would get for making that appointment; Emil Jones, who was a close ally of Blagojevich, but he thought that after he made the appointment, he would have little value to him; Lisa Madigan, the attorney general and daughter of Blagojevich nemesis and Speaker of the Illinois House, Michael Madigan—this choice was always a bluff; and besides Jesse Jackson Jr. (who’s full story in this case hasn’t come up yet) there was Blagojevich’s Ace in the hole. By the end of the week, I’ll tie it all up right here.

In other court news:

The prosecution renewed their call for a gag order on the defense, or the defendant, or both. It appears to be only a matter of time as getting Rod Blagojevich to keep his mouth shut would require a herculean effort.

The defense filed a motion for a mistrial, based on the many objections that Zagel has been sustaining. Of course, it was not a serious motion in terms of the instant case, because Zagel wasn’t going to declare a mistrial because of rulings he has made. But it was to preserve a record of the problems the defense has had in Zagel’s courtroom that could be a narrow avenue to an appeal. If they did not ask for relief now, then an appellate court could conclude that they should have first brought the issue up with the trial judge. Now they have. The issues they raised, concerning many sustained objections and comments made by the bench in front of the jury have  surprised me (via my lay eyes) almost as much as the deffense. This is the third federal judge I have seen preside over fairly high profile cases. This certainly doesn’t qualify me as an expert, and for all I know the norm is closer to Zagel’s style then the other two cases that I witnessed. However, Judge Zagel is by far the most proactive judge I have seen; he is by far the strictest judge I have seen when it comes to keeping cross-examinations within the scope, he is by-far the strictest judge I have seen—almost having a zero-tolerance—for any kind of emotional or theatrical appeal to the juror’s sensibilities. And all of these by-fars will most likely benefit the prosecution, making the defense’s uphill climb a little steeper.

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It’s another gray day in Chicago as ominous dark clouds hang over the skyline and the edge of a front looms in the distance. Against this backdrop, the third full week of the Blagojevich trial begins just as against steep odds the defense team seemed to be holding their own until late last week. However, by the week’s end, besides the (so-far) failure of Sam Adam Jr.’s style to find a home in Zagel’s courtroom, there seems to be a real lack of cohesiveness in Blagojevich’s defensive strategy, with the attorneys employing what appears to be an ad hoc style without well-defined roles. At least that what it looks like to me after having seen some tag-team attorney combinations that have been effectively used to level long odds.

Pretrial notes:
Blagojevich is much more subdued. The prosecution and the defense were supposed to meet this morning, by Judge Zagel’s orders, to discuss ground rules for speaking outside of court. It was supposed to be an effort to avoid a gag order. The attorneys may be able to use their professionalism to voluntarily comply with various rules, but the clock is ticking on the defendant. We could almost set up a pool to track how much time will elapse before Blagojevich and/or his attorneys get gagged. I have never seen a trial where the US Marshalls have more trouble dealing with the defendant that they do with the public.

So for perhaps the first time, I didn’t even notice the quiet-as-a-mouse Blagojevich walking into court (but the new-leaf won’t survive lunch as we shall see). The attorneys work the crowd, as ebullient as ever, with the exception of Sam Adam, Junior. He bends over his notes and gnaws at his thumbnail, his lips tight. Rod Blagojevich, sitting silently next him, suddenly swivels his chair to tune into a conversation between Michael Ettinger and Adam Senior.  Brother Rob’s Ettinger is the one attorney in the court who is nearly always smiling or entertaining the troops, often looking like he is savoring a joke told hours before. ( Example: The name of the IRS-agent witness was Sherry Schindler. She brought money-trail charts that she had made. Ettinger called them “Schindler’s list.”)

The defense:

I officially don’t get the increasingly fragmented and disjointed defense (not that anyone asked nor cares). Conversely, it appears the prosecution is putting forth a carefully crafted case that fits nicely into Zagel’s courtroom. They are careful to limit the areas covered by their direct examination to thereby limit the areas that can be covered by cross-examination. In many cases the defense is largely put on during the prosecution’s case. But not in this trial.

Once again, there appeared to be one or two issues that the defense needed to put in front of the jury, and in Sam Adam Sr.’s cross-examination by chainsaw, the jury not only didn’t get key defense points, they could only be left with the impression that John Johnston was indeed extorted by the governor because why would the defense be floudering so badly if he wasn’t.

In trying to get Kelly into  the Johnston discussion, which clearly was more of an interaction between Monk and Blagojevich,and in trying to make something out of the departed Kelly’s gambling proclivities, the defense took their argument right into the slough of objections. At one point, Zagel interjected: “Is that all you got? What other people said?”

After trying to navigate down a dangerous alleyway where the witness was invited to discuss the term quid quo pro, Adam Sr.’s voice seemed to catch when he was sheepishly backing off and asking a more innocuous question: “He wanted to support his cont…cont-inued revenue sharing?” And while he was still reeling, back-peddling, he started asking him questions about counsel Bill Quinlan, who never came up in direct and Adam Sr. should have known it. But things weren’t going very well. Easy objections.

The witness later said he got offended when Monk suggested he should donate a certain amount. Johnston said that Monk was always asking for contributions. It was kind of surprising that he was never asked if he told Monk or otherwise indicated to him that he was going to give him money. Perhaps it is just hypotheticals left over from what wasn’t asked, but it seems that would be within the scope of the direct examination and it could have established that Monk was lying to Blagojevich. This could have meant the pressure was unilaterally coming from Monk, not the governor. But that didn’t happen in cross. Nothing did. It’s hard to know what’s in the jurors’ minds, but from the second row of the gallery, about all I can remember is that the witness thought a donation was linked to an official action, and that the witness felt it was wrong. And whatever it was the defense was trying to do—never mind the jury—the judge wasn’t buying it, and in the several court cases I’ve observed, the jury always picks up cues from the authority figure in the room, in this case Judge Zagel. The jury may not understand the legal issues involved, nor will they care, nor are they supposed to, but they sense a flurry of objections, especially when coupled with judicial admonishments, means the opposing side must be making better points.

Fittingly, the conclusion to the second successive floundering cross-examination ended with a question crafted by defendant Rod Blagojevich. Typically, before giving up a witness, the questioning attorney will quickly confer with co-counsel to make sure they didn’t miss something. This time, a furiously scribbling Rod Blagojevich earnestly whispered at Sam Adam Sr. who then turned and asked a question that didn’t make much sense. Yeah, he signed the bill after he was arrested. That didn’t help. So much for making your best point last.

After lunch, the hot topic in the ante-room lobby was Patti Blagojevich’s new hairstyle. Rod Blagojevich added his two cents: “I think she’s beautiful, but I tell her she’s beautiful every day.” This softer post-gag-attempt-Blagojevich didn’t last long. As he was making his way through the crowd, he suddenly wheeled and with his fluttering eyes suddenly hard and piercing, he pointed at a lady who had asked a question, and said, “Before this is over, the first amendment is going to win.” It’s the return of Rod Blagojevich freedom fighter. The clock’s ticking.

The rest of the morning and into the afternoon was devoted to the allegation that Rod Blagojevich held up the funding for Chicago Academy until Rahm Emanuel’s brother, a successful Hollywood agent, held a fundraiser for the governor.

According to Dr. Donald Feinstein, of the Chicago Academy, a grant was awarded to the school, a press conference was held to announce it, and construction was begun on a new athletic field. When the invoices started coming in, the money from the state had not yet been released, and when it was, it came in dribs and drabs. But that was just a set-up for the main event, the part that involved the Governor engaging in alleged criminal activity.

The Governor’s involvement was presented by Blagojevich Deputy Governor Bradley Tusk, a man who to my knowledge has never been implicated in being party to any wrong doing. The one point he was invited to make by the very on-topic hit-and-run prosecution was that he had a conversation with Blagojevich in which the governor told him he was to tell Rahm Emanuel that his brother had to have a fundraiser for him before he would release the Chicago Academy’s grant money. The shocked Tusk made a couple of calls: To counsel Bill Quilan and to John Wyma, but he never delivered the message to Emanuel.

The defense could make two arguments that might help mitigate the allegation: 1) The request was never made to Emanuel; and 2) The money was released and the athletic field was built, sans fundraiser (it was originally supposed to be ready for the school year but it was finished in October). So with these simple arguments on the table, defense attorney Sorosky waded into the kinds of gaffs that have plagued the Blagojevich team throughout the early going part of the trial.

• Early in his questioning, Sorosky pointed out that Tusk did not have a political sponsor. That’s not such a good point to make as most people in this trial had political sponsors with names like Rezko and Kelly.


• Perhaps the worst gaff was when Sorosky tried to make a case that the money could have been held up because the state was in such a bad financial situation, or because there were so many institutions vying for grant money from the state. Judge Zagel himself jumped on this one to point out the gaping hole in the argument. Neither of these two issues have any bearing whatsoever on grant money that has already been appropriated. Zagel’s interjection was particularly damning for the defense because it was like he was reaching into the barrel to pull out the red herring before waving it at the jury. He basically called BS on the defense.


• When Tusk talked about a call that had taken place between himself and Blagojevich, Sorosky asked something about what Blagojevich was thinking. Zagel piped up: “They were at different places. So now we have mind-reading over the telephone.” Later Sorosky asked Tusk why the prosecution wanted to know something. Zagel said: “Now we’re mind reading the prosecution.”


• And then Sorosky tried to make some points on some things he was mistaken about. He tells Tusk that he didn’t quit his job over these shady deals and “continued to talk to the governor” for two years. Tusk pointedly said that he left the administration about a month after the call.


• Sorosky continued the usual pattern the defense has been using of spending a little portion of their cross in yelling at the witness while throwing barbed questions at him. This was particularly problematic for this witness, who was not charged with a crime and where there was little evidence that he would have participated in anything illegal. It came off rather hollow, like a frustrated defense berating a witness because they couldn’t get anywhere with facts or questions. And the point they were yelling about was a questionable change of testimony between what he said on the stand today and what he told the Grand Jury. Zagel eventually said that in both cases, he was relating that someone had said “words to that effect,” meaning he never claimed to be making an exact quote.


• When Tusk said that he “didn’t recall” a certain detail, Sorosky yelled at him a couple times that “I don’t recall”  is the same as saying it never happened. Not exactly.

Toward the end of the Sorosky gaff-fest, Adam Sr. looked over and winked at Patti. Maybe that’s what’s missing in this thing. And speaking of Patti, who had to leave the room for a portion of subsquent withess John Harris’ testimony that was about her, the nice lady who writes for Time Magazine (Dawn Reiss) was having a pleasant discussion with Patti during the break,  including what a loving couple they seemed to be. The reporter tried to throw out an example of a couple that was famous for being a couple, unfortunately she chose Bonnie and Clyde. Patti blanched. “No we’re not,” she said coldly. Maybe it was the new bobbed hair-do.

The day ended with Blagojevich’s second Chief-of-Staff, John Harris, on the stand. I’ll leave off on that one for now. The prosecution says that he should be on the stand for the rest of the week.

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It’s been seven court-days since testimony began, ten days since the jury was seated. As every one else lives their lives, it’s been two full weeks.

This year’s trial of the century has been mostly a quiet affair, a blip in most of the national papers. The press is already bored, the public too—with the exception of a diverse group of Chicagoans who make up die-hard Blagojevich supporters. The locals only lift their eyes at some of the antics because not only is political corruption in Chicago not all that unusual,  it is fairly commonplace. It’s not even the only corruption trial going on in the courthouse at the same time. One of the regular courtroom watchers in the gallery was himself the subject of a corruption investigation.

Surveying the national media, most old school-moneyed outfits tend to focus on the humorous pop-culture aspects of the trial. They know their readership, and their writers feed them accordingly. Blagojevich keeps up his ring-master sideshow act, Sam Adam Jr. too, holding court within the on-again off-again strafing  spotlight. But regardless of the outcome of this trial, Blagojevich’s punishment has already begun as he is losing his grip on an internal struggle for relevance. On the shifting backdrop of modern-day bread, wine & circus, the landscape is littered with yesterday’s charismatic people who reigned over us for a little while, entertained us for a little while, were licensed by us to gorge themselves in their excess for a little longer; and all so they would end-up sentenced to be cordoned off in a too-quiet courtroom while we move on to the next one.

Months from now there’ll be a verdict, one side or the other will take their bows. The world will have changed by then. It always does. Everything will have changed except maybe one thing: Every morning at dawn, outside the federal court building in downtown Chicago, there’ll be the same endless boring discussion about just where the line is. This door or that one? Who was first? Where are the cameramen going? But even that’ll pass too. Everything does.

[I went to Michigan over the weekend for a sandwich. Trial resumes Monday morning. I’ll be there if you care to join me here.]

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Ratso Rizzo was on the stand today, a hold-over from yesterday afternoon.

Dustin Hoffman the actor, the original Rizzo, has played many roles over his long career, which in accordance  with a theory of one of my relatives, I have often thought he was always Ratso Rizzo in different predicaments. I keep thinking that Mr. Cari has an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Hoffman. And this time Ratso Rizzo is another tragic figure in the Blagojevich trial. A financial guy with strong credentials, he was Al Gore’s National finance chairman in the 2000 election, and apparently was one of the lawyer-suits that was parachuted into my home state of Florida to engage in hand-to-hand legal combat over hanging chads. He also lost his wife to cancer which apparently had a long range affect on him and effects him still. I understand this one.

He also had the unlucky or unfortunate circumstance to end up in Illinois, meeting people like Stuart Levine and Tony Rezko. Yesterday, he related the story of going to O’Hare to get on a private plane and fly with Blagojevich, Levine, Rezko and Kelly to New York to help host a fundraiser. It is a difficult scene as he tells it. It’s like watching a tragedy that you’ve already seen before. I mean you know the damn dog’s going to die. You know the kids’ll grow up and one of them will die at the beach house. In this case, he tells about how excited he was to be riding on the private plane to New York City, and to be plugged into the groundfloor of the bourgeoning campaign of an up-and-coming democrat, a charismatic guy with presidential aspirations. And then when he says that his new friends on the plane are Levine, Kelly and Rezko, you know this is going to end badly. The dog really is going to die. The nice kid will go to jail.

Cari was part of a faint drumbeat and he may have been the best witness for the prosecution yet, better then the sad case of Joseph Aramada, who’s seeming gullibility and lack of self-awareness made him a hard witness to put much stock in. The prosecution still can’t make the direct connection that puts dirty money into Blagojevich’s hand nor have they had an eyewitness that has him giving the order to manipulate state services in exchange for money.

However, at two weeks into the case, they have Monk putting Blagojevich in a room where a conspiracy was being discussed. They have Aramada saying he was told by Rezko, one of the guys who was in that room with Monk, that there was a scheme involving Rezko, Levine, Kelly and Blagojevich, in which state boards and commissions will be stacked in order to funnel them money. And they now have Cari saying Levine told him that Rezko, Levine and Blagojevich were plotting together to make money off the state.

The defense table, this morning, particularly after Cari left the stand, was the most subdued they’ve been all trial. Conversely, although the prosecution is generally a much more staid bunch on their most festive days, their confidence seemed to be showing as they are getting more of a flow and rhythm in the case. It also might help that the antics of Sam Adam Jr. are not playing well in Judge Zagel’s court. More on that later.

I have thought all along that Blagojevich could prevail in this trial if the defense is able to work the context issues, or if they are able to pick a cohesive theme—a strategy—and make on-point crosses that build on the theme. But this hasn’t happened and the scattershot strategy-of-madness they developed during the pre-trial build-up doesn’t work in Zagel’s courtroom. So far, they seem to spend an exhaustive amount of time annoying the jury by picking at indefensible issues, or going over and over what has already been established, until it reaches a crescendo when they yell at the witness, calling him a liar, and this predictable format is just not working for them. It seems that they need to vary the theme and succinctly take on what the witnesses are saying, and explore the context while linking it back to a couple on-point plausible themes. But what do I know? I’m just some guy in the gallery.

And it’s early yet. A lot could happen. But it’s been my experience that in spite of what the judge says about making up their minds or coming to conclusions—the twelve people who will decide the case are humans and there is a human tendency to make up their minds early. In the Scrushy fraud case, which I attended, it lasted six months but it is now known the prosecution lost it in the first month. If human nature causes their minds to get made up, it will be an uphill battle to change them back.

In the afternoon, the defense gave a clinic in their scattershot unfocused, undisciplined defense until the day culminated in a collision course between Sam Adam Jr. and Judge Zagel (guess who’s going to win that faceoff). First up in the witness chair  was Jill Jayden, who was Blagojevich’s Director of Boards and Commissions and was responsible for going through the applications to fill the various boards. She went through the process she used, which included displaying original documents that showed that a majority of the people recommended to serve on boards were recommended by Tony Rezko or Chris Kelly. Five of the eight members of the Illinois Finance Authority board were Rezko (4) or Kelly (1) recommendations, including the chairman, Ali Ata. Her sheets also showed that some people who were nominated by other prominent politicians did not end up on the board. The defense really only had one point to make, just one, that there was nothing on her sheets that reflected how much each candidate had donated. But nonetheless, Michael Gillespie spent over half an hour making her repeat nearly everything she said. It appears that the prosecution only used a small portion of Jayden’s charts, so they possibly could have made an issue about what the prosecution  didn’t use, assuming that wouldn’t make things worse for them.

Then came Ali Ata who was supposedly hand picked by Rezko to be the chairman of the Finance Authority. He also donated the requisite $25K that previous testimony has fixed as the going rate for board positions in Blagojevich’s administration. It was standard fare. He confirmed some of the prosecution’s story line, but then when Sam Adam started his cross, a good day for the prosecution became even better and it got kind of interesting.

Early objections through off his timing, broke his rhythm, and it looked like Sam Adam Jr. was starting to lose it a bit. And when Adam Jr. was discussing the FBI questioning of Arab-American Ali Ata after 911, to perhaps make the point that Ata had something against the FBI or felt that he was treated unfairly by the justice system, Hamilton made two strong objections and Zagel told Adam Jr. to “sit down for a bit.” The jury was sent out and he asked the visibly frustrated Adam Jr. what the basis for his line of questions was. And for the rest of the afternoon, Zagel had a tight grip on Adam’s leash as he transformed his courtroom into a schoolhouse.

• He told Adam Jr. that he was not allowed to ask the witness to make a legal conclusion about what constitutes a quid pro quo. Adam Jr. protested that the prosecution had done the same thing. In the earlier instance, the one the prosecution was referring to, the witness had said he thought he saw a quid pro quo, and the prosecutor was permitted to ask why he thought so;


• As Adam Jr. launched  into one of his start small and go into a thunderous crescendo about how Ata had never told Rod Blagojevich he wanted a job but that Rezko mentioned he might want a job…Zagel cut him off and said, “That’s a nice argument. Feel free to use it in your closing arguments;”


• As Adam Jr. jack-hammered the point that Rod Blagojevich never traded money for a job, Zagel cut him off again. He said: “If the point you’re trying to make to this jury is that Rod Blagojevich never personally said ‘give me money and I’ll give you a job,’ and you don’t think this jury doesn’t get that point by now, then you should give up all hope;”


• When Zagel sustained another Hamilton objection, Adam Jr. shot him an annoyed, frustrated look. Zagel said, “I know you look shocked. But I know you’re not shocked,” meaning you can try theatrics with the jury but it doesn’t work on me. The judge was not going to have Adam Jr. showing him up or upstaging him in his courtroom.

For the defense, it was a good time to end the week, and take some time to regroup. The problem the defense seems to have is that they bury their best arguments in rhetoric which will go nowhere in Zagel’s courtroom. This trial will be a long miserable slow execution for Blagojevich—perhaps putting a damper on his all-Blago-all-the-time show—if Adam Jr. and his team can not find a way to adapt to Zagel’s courtroom.

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A ritual

Rod Blagojevich is getting emboldened as the trial goes on. He has a new ritual. In the morning, while waiting for court to open, Sam Adam Sr. usually comes by, striding quickly ahead of a couple of the defense attorneys. He waves brightly and says, “Good morning everyone.” And then former Governor Rod Blagojevich makes his entrance. He takes a couple strides from the elevator, makes a neat pirouette and faces the last remnants of his imagined constituents. He shakes hands, works the first few people in the crowd. When I wrote about the trial of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, he was simultaneously being tried on a multiple count indictment while he was running in the state primary for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. He was sometimes the politician, sometimes the defendant. But it was never like this, with a fallen politician—the man who would be president—getting daily energy surges from the supporters who have come to see the worst. And it is a reinvention. To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor, Maybe he’d have been a great governor if he could have been on trial for every day of his life¹. I spoke with a young woman who works for the Secretary of State, in the Thompson Center, where the governor’s office is. She reports that she often sees Governor Pat Quinn around the office, but never saw Blagojevich. Maybe there is something about the therapeutic value of indictments that brings out humility and at long last, humanity.

Finishing up with Aramanda

Fulltime friend and part-time patsy of Antoin Rezko, Joseph Aramanda, spent the morning finishing up on the stand. It was a slow train coming as it was clear where the defense attorney Michael Gillespie was going all morning, but nonetheless, Aramanda got testy because I guess when it’s all around you, things aren’t as clear as they are from twenty-five or thirty feet away. Life is like that sometimes. It’s just more clear  in the barren confines of the oak-paneled courtroom.

Here’s the problem: Aramanda is a businessman with a degree in finance, he’s a CPA, he has had many years of professional business experience working for major corporations. And then he met Antoin “Tony” Rezko. Fast forward past the part where he worked for Rezko, where he bought (and probably overpaid for) dozens of pizza shops from Rezko, and get to the part where he asked his buddy if he could help him out because he was in dire financial straights. Rezko hooked him up with Kjellander who loaned him money that Rezko promptly grabbed under the pretenses of an old debt, and he had the money sent to his associates.

Now here’s the question: Didn’t this experienced businessman realize that Rezko was using him, that he was laundering money for his pal. He never seemed to get that. If he is believable, he doesn’t really get it to this day. So still later, after another suspicious loan was picked up by Aramanda, Tony hooked him into a deal where he was paid $250,000 for doing nothing. Aramanda will debate that point, swearing that it was earnest money for future work he was going to do for his new business partner, Sheldon Bekin, an associate of Rezko and Stuart Levine. Didn’t this businessman, this CPA, this one-time COO and executive VP, realize that they had wired him into something shady. Choo-chooo. The train’s coming around the bend. Choo. And when this do-nothing-for-fabulous-wealth scheme didn’t turn out to be as good as they had promised— he expected millions—he said that he walked away because it was wrong. He cited three reasons, that he wasn’t going to make the kind of money he thought he’d make, that he didn’t have the time because his pizza shops needed him, and that it was wrong because Rezko told him that there were others involved who would get a cut, namely Monk, Kelly and Blagojevich. But clearly, if he really thought it was wrong, the other two reasons never would have come up. If I was backing out of something because I didn’t want to be involved in a criminal enterprise, that’s the only reason I’d need. Something’s a little off about this,  like the conspiracy connection was an afterthought.

He just figured out that it was wrong? Really? It’s a darn good thing  for him that both he got his immunity and Rezko decided to reel in the money he was going to make because I’m pretty sure the wrong-whistle would never have gone off in his head if Rezko didn’t take away that million-dollar carrot.

On balance, Aramanda was probably a sometimes good and a sometimes not-so-good witness for both sides. For the most part, he could not be shaken by the defense. Sometimes the attorney would give him the classic: “Isn’t it true” line and he would say no, or would defiantly correct Gillespie when he felt that his words were being twisted or mischaracterized. But the sordid nature of his tale, in itself, makes him less than reliable as a witness, and the fact that he seemed to be so easily played by Rezko, has to give pause that maybe he’s still being played by Rezko, who it turns out he’s still loyal to. And the biggest problem, as far as this trial is concerned, is that the prosecution has already shown there were some bad things going on involving state money, and some people who were without a doubt too close to the administration, were involved in these crimes. But so far, the direct link to Blagojevich always seems like an afterthought, and instead of a net closing in on Blagojevich a clearer picture of a corrupt Rezko emerges, a guy who’ll suck in people like Aramanda, and perhaps Monk. I’ll admit that this is most likely the picture the defense wants me—um, the jury—to see, and I understand that, but the prosecution is yet to replace it with a strong image of a direct connection. The defense was also able to make the point that Aramanda didn’t mention the part about Rezko telling him Monk, Kelly and Blagojevich were involved until long after the investigation was underway.

Another day—more antics

I’m worried this will become a regular feature, like I’ll get sucked into the strange and wonderful world of Governor Blagojevich, or defendant Blagojevich as the prosecution calls him, but after lunch he made another grand entrance. While chatting with people in line to get into the court, a young man wanted to have his picture taken with him on his cell phone.  They huddled in front of the camera—contraband on the 25^th floor—moved in close like old friends, and the trial-souvenir was memorialized. As soon as the kid snapped the picture, Blagojevich pointed in the direction of the courtroom and said, “Look, there’s Judge Zagel.” Then he had a big grin, enjoying his joke like a teen who had just pulled one over on the adults. A few minutes later, someone else wanted a picture. By this time, a US Marshall had posted himself nearby in the hall. Blagojevich looked over and said, “Can’t do it. Don’t worry George, I know you can’t take pictures here. I  wouldn’t do that.”

There goes that Blagojevich, always saying he didn’t do it, we didn’t do it. We’ll see.

Judge Zagel’s Courtroom

[The hour’s late, it’s been a long week, and this post needs to get out, so this will be an issue that will be explored more fully in coming posts, possibly on the weekend.]

I will not claim to have a particular wealth of experience in watching trials, but I have seen two other fairly high profile cases that were tried in front of different judges, and I’ve spent a total of about eight months in federal courtrooms. And I think that Judge Zagel is by far the best judge I have seen, on at least several different levels.  I do not have enough experience to know what factors might be at play in this, e.g. the standards of the district, the individual qualities of the judge, the judicial experience, or just coincidental variations.

Zagel is efficient and wastes very little time in his court. On the first day of testimony, one of the defense lawyers stood up and said, “Judge, could we have a side bar,” and Zagel said, “I have a rule in my court. It’s you’re allowed one sidebar a day. Do you want this to be it?” The attorney said no, and sat down. I have sat through trials where the amount of time in sidebars easily outdistanced the amount of time spent giving testimony to the jury.

In some of his post-session meetings with the lawyers—really the only sidebars on most days—he is often instructive to the lawyers about why he is overruling or sustaining objections. And he gives these detailed instructions, in part, to help them present a better case—in his court—to the jurors, as he reminds the attorneys that having many objections sustained will lead the jury to conclude there is something wrong with that side’s case. He also talks at length about the semantics the attorneys should or should not use in their questions in order for the questions to stand.

For instance, he tells them the jury won’t understand what is meant by the word, “substantive.” As in, “Did you have any substantive conversations with the defendant?” He tells them not to be repetitive or he will—and already has—stop them. During today’s session, he stopped an attorney from saying, “Did Tony Rezko lie to you?” Zagel said this substitutes the witness for the jury, meaning they should have the witness tell just what happened, and then let the jury decide if he was lied to. Zagel will also absolutely not allow an attorney to use a witness for any purpose other than what the witness took the stand to testify about.

This last point is of particular interest to me. Of course it is an academic “what if” exercise and we’ll never really know, but I’m pretty sure that if Alabama Governor Don Siegelman were tried in front of Judge Zagel, he would never have been convicted of at least one of the two charges he was found guilty of.

At the end of the day, Zagel discussed a motion that been filed around noon, by the prosecution. As Patti Blagojevich put it, whispering, “They’re trying to gag my husband’s attorneys.” She might have been able to go a little further in that they wanted to gag her husband’s attorneys and her husband as well. Zagel was concerned about what Blagojevich’s attorneys were saying, especially because—as he pointed out—the TV soundbite cycle is very fast and it is never played with context, but he didn’t not want to take the harsh step of imposing a gag order on them. (This soundbite thing is particularly problematic—and I believe this is his real concern—because TV stations love the quick explosive quip that would happen way too fast for a juror to turn the channel or turn off the set.) He asked the two sides to try to work out an agreement with the hopes that Blagojevich’s attorneys will voluntarily back off on some of the rhetoric.

More tomorrow.

^1. Obscure reference of the day: The paraphrase is a reference to Flannery O’Connor’s story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

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The Day Begins

The defense table is jovial, laughing. One of the people in the gallery says something to Adam Jr. and the attorney says with a broad grin, “One must not rest on one’s laurels. We have another day to do.” Blagojevich cracks a few one-liners to the gallery, like he’s warming up the crowd for a show. Monk, perched silently in his witness chair, waiting for the day, looks tired, uncomfortable. He flexes his mouth muscles, sucks air in his cheeks and stares glumly straight ahead. They’re still laughing at the defense table. There’s a party going on over there and Lon’s not invited. It’s a long way from Malibu to this room in the courthouse. The prosecutors whisper at each other, quietly preparing for another round, and Monk is looking down now, like he has seen a spot on the carpet and it is suddenly very interesting.

Rod Blagojevich, fighter for the people: Politics as usual

In cross examinations today, with both Alonzo Monk and geeky actuary David Able, the defense skirted close to a several issues that Judge Zagel has assured the prosecution will not enter his courtroom. The first is that the defense is forbidden to craft a politics as usual style of defense. That is they can’t argue to the jury that Blagojevich could not be guilty because he was just playing hardball politics the way it is played. And they are also not supposed to argue to the jury that the good things that Blagojevich did for the people of Illinois should somehow excuse any criminal activity he engaged in. This second one is a particularly dire concern since it is clear that Blagojevich’s pretrial activities were designed to remake himself as an accessible man-of-the-people fighter for the little guy. The key words here are that they are not supposed to directly argue to the jury, that is they can’t craft a strategy where his politics-as-usual or fighter-for-the-little-guy tropes are used to bolster his defense or impeach prosecution witnesses. And as seen in today’s session, by way of a flurry of objections, the prosecution is lying in wait for Blagojevich’s attorneys to try to sneak these forbidden defenses into any nook or cranny they can find.

This afternoon, with underwriter David Able on the stand, Blagojevich attorney Sheldon Sorosky repeatedly tried to say that the alternative to the (allegedly) rigged bond deal was to raise taxes. In today’s Tea Party-esque climate, that’s tossing some legal fire-crackers into the courtroom. They also suggested the near destitute state ($40 billion in debt) didn’t have enough money to pay its state pension if the government did nothing then it would only sink to greater depths, including not being able to pay pensioners All objected to. Nothing to do with the crimes. Various forms of the tax question were raised and were repeatedly tossed out by way of prosecution objections. However, in the end, the defense was able to let the jury know that the bond deal kept them from raising taxes. They didn’t really expect answers to those questions, did they?

That the legislature approved the deal, that the actuary thought it was a good thing for the state, that it was better than doing nothing and that Blagojevich, Rezko & Company didn’t tell anyone to put Bear Stearns in the highly qualified category, were all filtered out by objections. At one point, Adam was essentially giving a litany of Fighter-Blagojevich type statements and asking for Monk to agree with assessment. Eventually, Zagel told Adam Jr. to start asking questions again.

So I get it. Blagojevich was a fighter for the little guy who’s only crime was trying too hard to do great things for the state, and if somewhere there were some crimes committed, it was just politics. That was the morning and early afternoon’s theme.

Defense Points (part 1)

A couple of the points made by Adam Jr. this morning were rather weak, but he balanced it out by making two strong ones. Adam Jr. made a big deal of the shady bribe-looking money that Rezko was paying him. His point wasn’t so much that it looked like bribes or payoffs from Rezko, which it certainly did, but apparently Monk originally told investigators that the money was a gift from Rezko, and he later said that he justified it in his mind by regarding the money as advance payment for work he was going to do for Rezko. Adam Jr. hammered away at this subtle change in his testimony but from my viewpoint, both ways he looked at it seem euphemistic to me. The money appears to be a bribe or payoff and the varying language Monk used to describe it was not that important.

 The second rather weak point (which may not have been that weak since the prosecution didn’t do much with it on re-direct) is that Adam Jr. claimed that Rezko’s picking people for the board was part of Blagojevich’s wider strategy of diversity, and that Rezko had many connections in the African-American community. In a state and city as diverse as Illinois and Chicago, it seems that it would be rather easy for someone to stack a board with in-the-pocket minorities as easy as stuffing it non-minorities.

Mid-day

One of the most surreal moments of the trial happened outside the courtroom today, after lunch. During lunch, a group of people collect in the alcove/sitting room near the corridor that leads to the Zagel’s court. The US Marshalls keep the area cordoned off until they let the press and the people with daily tickets file into the court. Other people, who won’t get in, sometimes gather in the alcove area until they disperse down to the overflow room. Today, for some reason, there was an unusual amount of people in that alcove/lounge—every seat was taken and people were milling around the hallway. Enter Rod Blagojevich with his wife Patti on his arm, both recently stars of celebrity reality shows, and now starring in federal court. Big smile. Some handshakes. Some quips. More smiles. Tittering. “Hey Governor,” comes from the left and right. He pats an arm. And then the room bursts into applause. More smiles and handshakes and the two of them drifted down the hall where he is being tried for twenty-four counts of various corrupt practices along with two RICO charges. I’ll admit that I’m fascinated by the rise and fall of charismatic people in the era of new media. The rock-star CEO and rock-star politician are offshoot phenomena of this new era, but I’ve never seen anything like this.

Defense points (part 2)

One of the strong points that Adam Jr. made has to do with the meetings that Monk said he was at with Rezko, Kelly and Blagojevich, in which Rezko stood at a white board or easel that had ideas drawn on it, next to dollar signs. Each idea was supposed to represent a way they could use governmental power to line their own pockets. But there’s one problem, and I’m surprised that I missed it yesterday. What was on that board? From the prosecution’s perspective, the scene looks great, we have the RICO charged governor in a room with three conspirators, and they’re talking about how to make corruption pay. But let’s zoom in on that board. Closer. Wait a minute: There’s nothing on it. Alonzo Monk could not remember a single—not one—idea that was on the board. Not one thing. There are big chunks of this case that seem to be really important, and one of the main conspirators can’t seem to remember the first thing about it. (Details like here the money went or what they were going to do to use power corruptly.)

The second strong point has to do with the drawback of electronic surveillance. Law enforcement is enhanced and the rule of law supposedly gets a leg up with all of the new-fangled forensic techniques. When all the phones are tapped and the rooms are bugged, then any time the bad guys get together to talk over their criminal enterprises, the feds are onto them. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, anyway. But what happens when a witness, giving state’s testimony, gives an eyewitness account of someone who supposedly said something, or made a phone call; and the phones are all tapped and they’re mics in the room, and none of them have that call. Oops. That happened today in court. Monk says that Blagojevich made a call where he told someone to slow or stop the funding for Children’s Memorial Hospital, but we didn’t hear THAT tape. Apparently, there isn’t one.

Afternoon break

One of the juror’s must be a drummer in his real life down there. He can do this marvelous spinning of his pen like I’ve seen drummers do with their drumsticks. One juror seems to change her look every day. And lastly, after watching several jury configurations, this is the first one I’ve seen that changes their seat configurations every time they leave the court. They’re very attentive  and seem to be getting along well. Time will tell if this will benefit either side (the prosecution sometimes like hyper-attentive jurors because they’ll make the effort to get past defense theatrics and try to understand the more dull aspects of the trial—but we’ll see).

The Laboratory of Court

There’s a theory that says when people are crammed into a large room and everybody collectively holds their breath, it makes an audible sound. It’s true. Scientists often have to wait a long time for the ideal lab-conditions to present itself before a theory can be proved, and it happened today in courtroom 2503 of the Dirksen Federal Building. Sam Adam Jr. asked Alonzo Monk: “Where’s Chris Kelly now?”

I can report that it sounds kind of like the vacuum of outer space: People quit fidgeting, notes stopped rustling, pens quit writing. I could swear the fluorescent lights stopped humming.

Over the objection, Monk said weakly, “He passed away.”

Zagel, reanimated again, nodded and said quietly, “Yes. He passed away.”

People die. We move on.

“Where’d the money go? To people we don’t know!” – Sam Adam, Jr. – opening argument

Most of the afternoon session was spent with the hapless Joseph Aramanda on the stand. We’ve all seen gangster movies where the bad guy finds a mule to do their dirty work, and invariably there comes the time in the yarn where the question must be asked: Where do they find these people? Enter Joseph Aramanda, a person unlucky enough to count Antoin Rezko as a friend. In a winding convoluted tale, it begins with Aramanda working for Rezko as the COO of his company, which was a major franchiser of Papa Johns pizza restaurants.

Initially, Rezko asked Joseph if he wanted to be in newly elected Governor Rod Blagojevich’s cabinet. “Sure!” Joseph had said, thinking he could bring his business experience to the governor’s administration. Rezko told him that he had a spot with his name on it…The Department of Aging. Suddenly, the pizza business didn’t look so bad to Mr. Aramanda. He declined. Apparently, having the Department of Aging in his hip pocket was important to Tony Rezko, who was supposed to be stocking the administration’s boards and commissions with his people. Maybe the Department of Aging was a gold mine. Who knew?

Next up in the sordid story is that his pizza businesses—all the Papa Johns in Wisconsin—which Aramanda had bought from Rezko (some might say were dumped on) weren’t doing so well. Aramanda was awash in late bills and had a serious cash flow deficit. No problem said his good friend and associate, Tony Rezko: I’ll hook you up with a loan. So after the banks had turned Aramanda down, Rezko associate Bob Kjellander loaned him $600,000, without collateral. Bob Kjellander? If you’re keeping score at home, he’s the Republican National Committeeman and Karl Rove friend, who was to have got the $500,000 in the rigged bond deal, money that was somehow supposed to go to Monk and the other conspirators, but somehow disappeared in the pipeline.

So Aramanda’s happy, right? This is where it gets kind of tricky, like a shell game with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Joseph Aramanda said he was going to use the money to pay off bills, buy and develop a new restaurant to increase his cash flow, and pay for ads to bolster his sagging pizza business. It’s nice having friends like Tony who can help in a pinch.

But not so fast. Tony Rezko just remembered that Aramanda owed him $475,000 left over from the purchase of his now failing pizza franchises. And Rezko needed the money now. So he has his good friend Joseph, now flush with cash from Kjellander, wire money to pay off five Rezko associates. Debts? Pay-offs? Who knows, it’s getting complicated. Easy come, easy go.

With all of his money gone to Rezko’s people, his lender, Bob Kjellander decided to call his loan. But his old friend Tony said not to worry, said he has another friend that’ll give him money, this time with the pizza restaurants as collateral. Jay Wilton loaned him $600,000. He couldn’t pay that loan either as it soon came due and it was good bye Papa Johns.

People like this never truly end up destitute and on the street even though they should. They always seem to have a Rezko to prop them up and then feed off them. And Antoin Rezko wasn’t done yet. Hey Joseph, you can be a middleman in this TRS thing—you know the retirement systems, lots of state money for the asking—it’ll get you all the money you need. Great, Aramanda said, because Tony is so good to him. Around this time, he also introduced him to another new friend. A man named Stuart Levine. (Uh oh.)

We’ll leave off this winding tale because he’s still on the stand. But even though we know who some of the players are, it’ll be a stretch to make the tangled web of Tony Rezko have a lot to do with Rod Blagojevich. Yes it was pretty stupid of him to let this guy run wild in the state of Illinois. But the defense has made it clear that they’ve conceded stupid. And that’s not illegal.

[I know the press will be all over this exchange because it’s their kind of quip but I need to include it to prove my last point.] During underwriter Vincent Mazzaro’s brief turn on the stand, he offered this anecdote: At a meeting, Blagojevich said, “One thing good about being governor is that an “A” student has to listen to a “C” student.

Judge Zagel asked the defense: “You really want that in?” Sorosky said, “Yes,” and it’s official. The stupid defense is in the record.

The day ended as it had begun. They were barely containing smiles at the defense table.

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The fog of court

On an overcast day in Chicago, from twenty-five floors up, the nearby buildings are silhouetted against the stark white background and the taller ramparts are completely obscured by low-hanging clouds. It is a fitting scene, the view from a courthouse where some things are crystal clear, some sights are a little hazy, and still the larger pieces of the story are as opaque as an overcast day in Chicago.

There is the omnipresent sound of a jackhammer from down there, making the foundation of the new federal building next door. There’re a couple sirens in the distance and a few faint horns from taxis. There’s a world going on down there, life, an incessant, steady hum of a place that’ll go on with or without Rod Blagojevich and his courtroom drama—even if we forget from way up here—and it’s a world that in the scope of history doesn’t really care one way or the other. They call us back to Zagel’s little courtroom. It’s time to line up.

Monk’s third day

Alonzo Monk spent his third day on the witness stand today. Hours before Rob’s Ettinger and Rod’s Adam Jr. began their cross, it almost appeared that Monk was already testifying for the defense rather than giving states evidence. And he is by-far not the most baggage-heavy cooperating witness.

On his first day on the stand, when the prosecution was going over his proffer agreement, Monk said that he had entered into an agreement with the government based on his honest and truthful cooperation. But the government should have quit while they were ahead, perhaps when Monk still had a twenty-five year sentence hanging over him (as he did in his previous indictment). It has been said about Blagojevich that self-interest was his over-reaching fault, but Alonzo Monk may have outdone his old friend in this department. From where I sat, it does not appear that Monk was a reliable employee, a reliable friend, a reliable public official and certainly not a reliable witness.

 During his testimony, Monk recounted at least (if I didn’t miss any) seven times that he lied to people he was working with. Five of the lies were to Blagojevich and two of them were to John Johnston, the racetrack owner who was paying Monk $150,000 to help him. The indictment portrays Monk’s involvement with the racetrack executive as extortion, and said that Blagojevich, communicating through Monk, was withholding the signing of a bill until he received $100,000.

A relevant portion of the indictment reads like this:

Defendant ROD BLAGOJEVICH had further conversations with Monk about the Racing Bill after it was passed by the Illinois legislature on or about November 20, 2008. In those conversations, ROD BLAGOJEVICH and Monk discussed whether and when ROD BLAGOJEVICH would sign the Racing Bill, and whether and when Racetrack Executive would arrange for campaign contributions to ROD BLAGOJEVICH. On or about December 3, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH indicated to Monk that he was concerned that Racetrack Executive would not make a contribution by the end of the year if he signed the Racing Bill before the contribution was made. As a result, Monk and ROD BLAGOJEVICH agreed that Monk would speak with Racetrack Executive to ensure that Racetrack Executive would make a contribution by the end of the year.

After meeting with defendant ROD BLAGOJEVICH on or about December 3, 2008, Monk visited Racetrack Executive. During that visit, Monk communicated to Racetrack Executive that ROD BLAGOJEVICH was concerned that Racetrack Executive would not make a contribution to ROD BLAGOJEVICH if the Racing Bill was signed before the contribution was made.

But Rod Blagojevich, Alonzo Monk and John Johnston were actually faced with a complicated problem that had little to do with any real or imagined extortion plot. It goes like this: a) John Johnston had already committed to donating $100,000; b) Because of the impending ethics bill, he would not be able to donate money after the end of the year; c) In the meantime, a racetrack bill beneficial to Mr. Johnston was passed by the Illinois legislature and was awaiting The Governor to sign it into law. So the problem that both Blagojevich and John Johnston faced was how could Blagojevich collect on the donation and then sign the bill without giving the appearance that the signature was in exchange for the donation.

While dealing with this problem, at no time did Blagojevich ever say or suggest that he was not going to sign the bill—either on the tapes or as reported by Alonzo Monk. The problem appears to be more a result of Monk’s work as an unreliable go-between who wasn’t telling either his client, Johnston, or his former employer, Blagojevich, the full story. When asked, by the prosecutors, why he wanted the bill signed, he referenced his own problems, saying that he feared the pressure that would be put on him by the man who was paying him. Monk is gumming things up by playing both sides of the fence. He reports that he lied to Johnston to make him think he was being more proactive about getting the bill signed, and at the same time, he’s telling Blagojevich not to worry because he’s going to get his money very soon. Blagojevich and Monk also discussed the real concern that Johnston might not want to give the donation right after the bill is signed because it would look like Johnston was paying for the legislation. Monk mentioned a couple of times that he tried to get Blagojevich to sign the bill because Johnston’s track was losing $9,000 a day. The defense likes to point out (both in opening arguments and during Monk’s cross) that the track isn’t really “losing” $9,000 a day, but they are just not getting a subsidy from the casinos, which was the point of the compensatory bill. But regardless of that point, if Monk is a paid lobbyist for John Johnston, of course he would want Blagojevich to sign the bill so his client could earn more money. That’s what he’s paid for. The pressure Monk discusses seems to be more about his own agenda than anything implemented by Blagojevich, who seems to be more focused on how to solve a fundraising issue.

During one of the calls, Rod Blagojevich talks to Rob about getting a house for the holidays, in Mexico. Rob says he should stay and finish the ongoing fundraising work but Rod says it is hard to ask for money around the holidays and he doesn’t seem overly concerned about getting the fundraising done before the first of the year, which is a major issue in this portion of the prosecution’s case. Monk later says he lied to Rod Blagojevich about going to the Dominican Republic to play golf because he’s afraid the Governor would be mad at him for leaving. He said that Rod got mad at him for a vacation once before but the juxtaposition of Rod’s talk about a holiday jaunt to Mexico next to Monk’s supposed fear that his weekend golf outing would get him in trouble does not ring true. But it does give the impression that Monk would say anything to anybody in order to avoid confrontation and feel more comfortable with his own situation. While expressing concern for his client’s plight on the way to the links, at no time did Monk suggest to Blagojevich that he felt what he was doing was wrong, nor did he find it necessary to give a full explanation of the situation to his client.

Some notes from the courtroom:

Patti Blagojevich usually has a shawl in court as the big room can get a little drafty. Today she put it to good use and used the shawl as a seat cushion. During the break and after lunch, she was pouring over the transcripts of the tapes and exchanging some thoughts with the lawyers. Besides Leslie Scrushy’s daily ritual of blessing the court and taking some reporters and myself to task for things written, I have never seen a spouse so actively involved with the legal team’s defense of her husband.

Almost by definition, the US Government should be staid, calm, even-tempered, and do their best to bring truth into the court which may be challenged by the defense. As I pointed out when writing about the opening arguments, they are not the Everyman in the courtroom, but they represent society’s rule of law, and as such, would not be expected to be particularly dynamic or perhaps as passionate as the odds-against-‘em defense. And I am not suggesting that they could be or should be as vibrant and energetic as Sam Adam Jr. (which few attorneys whether representing The State or The Defense would be) but when Christopher Niewoehner was questioning Lon Monk, he stood like a statue and carefully, ploddingly delivered each question in a flat monotone. And the jury was drooping by stages. And that’s the point. It makes little difference if I or anyone in that courtroom finds the dialogue interesting, but it matters at least a little if the jury can not stay tuned in and involved. I make a jury check once or twice an hour. This afternoon, at least one juror was asleep and a couple were not engaged. In the afternoon of last Thursday, at least four of the juror’s did not appear to be engaged. However, by and large, it appears to be a very attentive jury, and in saying that, I’ll have to note that they were riveted by Adam Jr. He speaks and gestures directly to the jury and not the witness or the judge.

During the direct examination of Alonzo Monk, an hour or so before the cross examination would begin, the defense table looked noticeably satisfied. They all—almost everyone of them—had little smiles and there was some head-nodding while the prosecution’s table told a different story. Carrie Hamilton was holding her head in her hands and the demeanor of the table seemed to be sagging. But no matter, it’s going to be a long trial. One charge of the twenty-four may have kind of vaporized today and this could not have been a good day for the prosecution, but they’ll probably be some better ones down the road. Stay tuned as the mosaic gets filled in and the big picture emerges like a cityscape on a sunny day.

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