President Barack Obama and the Democratic nominee for his old Senate seat came up in the trial of Rod Blagojevich this afternoon, as Blagojevich’s former Chief of Staff John Harris continued his testimony about how his boss tried to leverage the Senate seat to land himself a cabinet position.
The jury was informed of a November 6, 2008 meeting that Blagojevich held one-on-one with SEIU President Tom Balanoff, whom Blagojevich was hoping would be a “go-between” between him and the White House in a deal for the seat.
“Okay we got a response,” Blagojevich tells Harris by phone. According to Harris’ testimony, Blagojevich communicated to Balanoff that he would appoint Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett to the seat in exchange for being named Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In a taped phone conversation, Harris tells Blagojevich that Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, the current Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat, had reached out and requested a meeting. Blagojevich told his aide not to take it just yet.
“Let’s run the clock out now,” Blagojevich said.
“I think he wanted to get the message out there publicly that the governor was in an active search for candidates by scheduling with people to come in while these negotiations were going on,” Harris testified Wednesday.
The purpose of raising the “profile of the search,” Harris said, was to generate a greater sense of urgency from Obama to act on Blagojevich’s request, fearing that he might take the search in another direction.
“He wanted to limit the negotiations to a go-between, Tom Balanoff, and he wanted to … create the appearance of other candidates being considered,” Harris said.