Picking up from where he left off in the morning, Rod Blagojevich’s former chief of staff, John Harris, testified about their plan for extracting the most value out of President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.
As Harris described it, Blagojevich was very involved in the process and very particular about how to most effectively set up the chessboard.
Harris testified that he and Blagojevich held a meeting with Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, and Tom Balanoff, the SEIU Illinois president. In the meeting, they feigned as if they were being approached by allies of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, and were considering a deal to appoint her to the Senate seat. Blagojevich and Harris presumed this information would quickly find its way back to Obama, who they hoped would be moved to negotiate for his presumed favorite candidate, Valerie Jarrett. Harris also said that Balanoff and Stern expressed their opposition to Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.‘s appointment.
Discretion was very important in all of this, Harris testified.
“Barack Obama did not want it to be known that he had a preference for his vacant Senate seat,” Harris said. “Among other things, it could upset other candidates who thought they had Barack Obama’s support.”
The prosecution played a taped telephone conversation between Harris and Blagojevich discussing strategy for a congratulatory call Blagojevich planned to make to top Obama advisor David Axelrod the day after Obama’s election. Harris tells Blagojevich not to bring up the Senate seat on his own. Blagojevich is juiced up, comparing his strategy for leveraging the Senate appointment to a sports agent looking to find the best deal for a free agent client.
Harris is still puzzled on the call about why the SEIU representatives were indirect in their previous meeting and never explicitly stated that they knew the president wanted Jarret. Blagojevich explains to his aide that Obama likely does not want to publicly air his preference for fear that it might upset some of his political supporters.
“We’ve gotta figure out the Madigan play if there is one,” Blagojevich says. “We’ve got Emil [Jones] as a fallback but not a very inspiring thought. The best he can do is raise money for me.”