Federal authorities on Wednesday identified Democratic Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois as the potential United States Senate candidate who was portrayed in court papers made public Tuesday as being the most deeply enmeshed in the alleged scheme by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to benefit from his appointment of a new senator to the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama....
Federal prosecutors in Chicago would not discuss the identity of Candidate 5 and would not comment on whether Mr. Jackson would be interviewed in the case....
The complaint also said that in a wiretapped conversation on Oct. 31, Mr. Blagojevich told an associate about an approach by the emissary from Candidate 5: “We were approached ‘pay to play.’ That you know, he’d raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him [Senate Candidate 5] a senator.”
ADDED: Jackson says: "I want to make this fact plain: I reject and denounce pay-to-play politics and have no involvement whatsoever in any wrongdoing. I did not initiate or authorize anyone at any time to promise anything to Gov. Blagojevich."
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44 comments:
Look whose Nuts are in danger of getting cut out now! It's not safe to fool around with Mother Michelle Obama's Family in ChiTown.
Sources say that they don't actually know for certain that it's Jesse Jackson Jr.
Rather, they just know that a black man, 35 to 45 years old and about 6 feet tall, last seen wearing a wool hat, dark boots, a long puffy winter coat and black pants was the one offering the bribe.
Paddy O:
It's early, but methinks you won the thread.
And Barrack throws Jesse Jackson, et al, under the bus, now, too.
Pretty soon, he will run out of Democrats to throw under the bus :)
I really enjoy the mystery of starting w/ code names and then sussing out who they are.
After reading the timeline spelled out in this article, I wonder if Blagojevich might not have been tipped off on 12/4 (the day before the Trib article that the author claims changed his strategy). What if the conversation that occurred on 12/4 (really the only time anything criminal re: candidate 5 is discussed) was a plant...what if Blagojevich just decided he needed someone to go down with him...could Jesse Jackson Jr. be framed by Blagojevich?
Well Elliot Spitzer's code name was Love Potion Number 9.
Darn it. And I really wanted to like him more than his dad too.
No doubt Karl Rove is behind all this.
Jackson family values; ya gotta love 'em.
Will we never rid ourselves of these corrupt political dynasties? Just when we think we've turned the corner on the Kennedy-Bush-Clinton clans another mole pops up for whacking...or would weasel be more apt?
I wonder if former governor Jim Mcgreevy called in gay today?
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
If they were going to name a Jackson as Senator I was hoping for Tito.
Will we never rid ourselves of these corrupt political dynasties?
Nope. If there's power to be had, corrupt dynasties will be near by.
Shortly before he died my father in law told me a story about when he managed a company around Chicago a few decades ago. He said he had few problems with the unions, but that the blacks had an unofficial quasi union that caused no end of trouble. The leader of this group bought dairy and bakery products to distribute around town but refused to pay his bill. When confronted, he pulled a .38 out of his brief case. My father in law, being from Texas, countered by pulling a .357 out of his desk drawer. Later in another incident, the man promised my father in law that the bakery would burn down the next day. Sure enough it did.
He told me that the man was some sort of relation to Jesse Jackson, a brother or cousin, I don't recall.
I wonder if thuggery is the real family business.
Skyler said...
I wonder if thuggery is the real family business.
Only if you are an up and coming Chicago Democrat. Yeah, people voted for one of them just recently. Isn't that right, Ann?
Pretty soon, he will run out of Democrats to throw under the bus :)
He'll end up with a corduroy road for his bus.
I have the sinking feeling that this is all just a beautiful distraction. By the time all this is sorted out the real bosses of Chicago will have exactly what they wanted out of it. They will control Obama.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Obama MUST renounce and reject JJ Jr. AND Wesley Snipes and Michael Vick.
traditionalguy said...
I have the sinking feeling that this is all just a beautiful distraction. By the time all this is sorted out the real bosses of Chicago will have exactly what they wanted out of it. They will control Obama.
Daley calls the shots and always has. He's got the in with the mob and the rest of the union goons that run that town. The only thing remotely clean about Chicago is when the winds come blowing in and move the smells around. Chicago is basically New Orleans North.
"The NYT reports that Jesse Jackson, Jr. was "Candidate 5"!"
Following in his fathers footsteps. Apples and trees, but then again people who alliance themselves with people like this know what they are getting into right?
Wow. This is really the "Jump to Conclusions" Crowd. You're condemning this guy based on Blagojevich's words?
Kind of of a hair trigger with the condemnations. That knid of behavior condemnable.
Bunch of conclusion jumpers.
Best headline on this storY:
Jackson: `5'?
Jesse Jackson Jr. is kind of hot. I would do him. He used to be a porker but I think he had that surgery.
How's was everyone's day without a gay? I hope it wasn't too much of an inconvenience.
I enjoyed my day without a gay.
Most of my days are without gays though. If I smell one at work I run the other way.
Gays tend to bug me.
This thing is a gold mine for the frothing Right. Anyone under consideration, all Democrats, is immediately guilty-by-association. Look for 4 more threads like this.
And they should be condemned. Sin-free conservatives throwing stones.
matthew said...Darn it. And I really wanted to like him more than his dad too.
Aww. You can still like him more.
I do, and I don't know much about the man. ;-)
We do need Peter V. Bella to chime in on this. He has the police connections to get the real dirt.
I would pay to play with Jesse Jackson Jr.
Jesse Jackson Jr has a nice haircut. I would like to pull on his hair as we are embracing.
"You're condemning this guy based on Blagojevich's words?"
Yeah, I think Blago made it all up to...to do something.
This thread sounds like a righty version of Daily KOS.
There is no evidence that Jesse Jr. has embraced his father's shakedown tactics. In fact Jesse Jr. could have gone into the family business and made a lot more money. He didn't.
Jesse Jr. has a good pubic record and no history of corruption or shady dealings. As Pat Fitzgerald said in his press conference, no conclusions should be drawn from untested hearsay.
We now know that Jesse Jr. was candidate 5. No crime in that. We do not know whether (a) a pay for play offer was actually made or (b) whether Jesse Jr. knew anything about it if the offer was made.
I don't know what was the worse travesty, Jesse Jackson shaking-down Anheuser-Busch for a Chicago distributorship for two of his sons, or the Grateful Dead when they recorded the disco-y Shakedown Street.
I hope this is nothing bad, but when I heard Jr.'s statement out of context on the radio I thought to myself "Dude is guilty of whatever it is he says he ain't."
I am not familiar with Jr. or his history, so I wish him well, but what I heard sounded bad.
Trey
Guilt by association is always a cheap shot. But the hon. Pat Fitzgerald has never worried too much about what is fair. He believes in his adversarial skills and his knowledge of his juror's bias patterns.He plays the same way the MSM likes to play, just in courtrooms. Perjury charges about a witness's answers to an Investigator's questions in a Non-crime case is as unfair as it gets.FREE SCOOTER LIBBY.
Fitzgerald is a crazy ass prosecutor in the Giuliani mold. He doesn't give a shit who he destroys. It's the Democrats turn in the barrel. Jesse Jr. really doesn’t want to be in his cross hairs. He will use the grand jury and perjury traps and everything at his disposal to destroy as many people as he can.
He reminds me a lot of how Spitzer acted as the Attorney General of New York.
For the record, I probably shouldn't have mentioned Jesse Jackson and the Grateful Dead in the same sentence.
Jesse Jackson Sr. just retained counsel. Yes, Sr.
Don't tell me this town ain't go no heart!
Maybe you had too much too fast.
The main question left is will Obama fry?
Headline - "Jackson 5!"
Sorry.
Anyone complaining about Fitzgerald should get a grip. Chicago/Illinois politics are a sewer. Have been for far too long. It's a disgrace and now that we've finally, at long last, got an honest prosecutor the pro-corruption coalition is chiming in?
That thing about Jesse Jackson Junior being Candidate No. 5 is going to really piss off Al Sharpton.
Why does the black man have to be the fifth choice? Why cain't the black man be the first choice? Why does the Obama administration consider to women and white men before it considers a black man?
No justice, no peas!
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