Trying to work Robert Blagojevich‘s military bona fides against him Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Niewoehner asked Blagojevich if he thought it would be wrong for a JAG officer to stop an investigation into another officer in exchange for having a friend appointed to a job. Blagojevich replied that he never served as a JAG officer and didn’t know the specifics of military trials but that the hypothetical sounded wrong.
“Once you joined Friends of Blagojevich you wanted Barack Obama to stop the investigation of your brother in exchange for putting his friend Valerie Jarrett into the Senate seat,” countered Niewoehner.
“No I didn’t,” Blagojevich replied, adding that when he spoke to his brother about “horse trading,” a phrase used in a wiretapped phone call on Nov. 5, 2008, he was speaking as a concerned brother and only referring to normal political deal-making.
“I use it in the context of what politicians do and how they get things that they want done,” Blagojevich testified about his choice of words.
In that Nov. 5, 2008 phone call, Robert and Rod Blagojevich spoke about the possibility of the then-governor being appointed to Obama’s cabinet, but Robert Blagojevich insisted Monday that he was never advocating trading a possible cabinet job for appointing Jarrett to the Senate.
On that same taped call, the Blagojevich brothers discussed the federal investigation that was circling the governor, and Robert Blagojevich wondered aloud whether Obama might shut it down. Rod Blagojevich dismissed the possibility.
“That’s what you wanted to have happen?” Niewoehner asked Robert Blagojevich.
“As a brother, of course I did,” Blagojevich responded, although he again said that he wasn’t suggesting this had anything to do with Jarrett’s appointment. Robert Blagojevich suggested his remark spoke to his political naivete.
The trial will continue Tuesday with Robert Blagojevich back to the stand. Rod Blagojevich’s attorneys told the court that they will call an FBI agent and former Blagojevich budget director John Filan to the stand before the former governor testifies.