Updates on a scandal...

Rahm Emanuel had 21 taped conversations with Blagojevich aides, says Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times. The subject was the Senate seat. If true, we may have a conflict with Obama's own internal investigation, in which he found himself not guilty:

In personally disclosing the results of the investigation he ordered, Obama said, "As I said in a press conference last week, I had no contact with the governor's office and I had no contact with anybody in the governor's office. What I indicated last week was there was nothing that my office did that was in any way inappropriate or related to the charges that have been brought."

The phrasing here is careful. If you look at the indictment, Blagojevich is not charged with selling a Senate seat. He is charged with the Wrigley Field thing and he is charged with defrauding the people of Illinois by depriving them of his own "honest services."

Pat Buchanan has asked a damned good question. No, I am not a Buchanan admirer. But he raises a point which few others (aside from -- ahem! -- my very humble self) have raised.

Why, if Fitzgerald was listening to the wiretaps and laying his trap for the governor and corrupt politicians interested in buying a U.S. Senate seat, did he abort the operation with his 6 a.m. arrests of Blagojevich and his chief of staff? Why spring the trap when the mouse is just outside, mulling over whether to go for the cheese?

Why not let the plot unfold? Why not let the corrupt bidder for a Senate seat make a solid offer and bring in his or her down payment? Why not wait for the felony to be committed instead of acting while it was still being considered and discussed?

The more I think about the timing, the less persuaded I become that Blagojevich tops the target list of this investigation. Of course, the reticence to wait until money exchanged hands may have something to do with our next item:

JJJ has been a snitch for Fitz since 2006, or so says CNN. Jackson has not been informing on the Senate brouhaha, but on other matters.

Apparently, a long time ago, Blagojevich asked Jackson for a $25,000 bribe when Jackson wanted his wife to be appointed to the Lottery Commission, a job she did not get.

After Blagojevich took office, in early 2003, he told Jackson something to the effect of, "You see what $25,000 would have done?" the sources said.

In 2006, Jackson reported the incident, which he believed to have been an attempt at a shakedown, the sources said.

The report, the sources said, came three three years later because Jackson's memory was jogged by another case — that of developer Tony Rezko, whose fraud and corruption trial included testimony about $25,000 donations to Blagojevich.

"Memory was jogged"? How does one go about forgetting a thing like that? Seems much more likely -- to me, at least -- that something else happened in 2006 that transformed JJJ into a "walk in." Something to do with the Rezko investigation.

Marcy Wheeler takes this notion further:

Also earlier this year, JJJ told Fitz that he refused to accept Tony Rezko's condition that the state would support a third airport only if JJJ agreed to let Blago approve the airport board.

The meeting in June of 2006 at a Gold Coast hotel included Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Blagojevich fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

The topic was a proposed third airport at Peotone, Jackson's pet project which needed more state money. Rezko allegedly demanded that the governor be given control of the airport's board. Jackson refused and state support for the project stopped.

Looks to me as though the airport thing may be the deal that turned Jackson into a walk in.

As you may recall, Rezko and his cronies Andrew Cherng and Abdelhamid Chaib wanted to control food concessions at O'Hare airport. One should also note that a construction firm run by one Christopher Kelly got multi-million dollar contracts for O'Hare after making large loans and donations to Blago. Kelly was also a partner in Rezko's food empire, and ran a campaign fund for Blago that raised some $37 million. (All gone?)

So you can see the potential for mischief vis-a-vis building a third airport.

Incidentally, all of these people also made donations to Obama. Why do progressives now have no trouble seeing the Blago donations as pay-offs, yet continue to view the Obama money as clean?

So who leaked the story about Jackson-the-informant? Was it Jackson? That would make sense. He really wants that Senate seat.

Who was the emissary? Who offered Blago a million bucks if JJJ got the nod? Marcy suggests that the go-between might be none other than Jesse Jackson Senior. I'll be very sad if that should turn out to be the case. But Jackson and Blago go back. When Slovadan Milosevic's forces had captured some American troops during the war in the former Yugoslavia, Jackson and Blagojevich made a highly-publicized visit to Milosevic to free the captives. (Interesting photo here.)

A side trip: The following story may or may not directly relate to the points made above, but it's worth telling anyways.

The O'Hare contracts were fronted by the recently deceased Herbert Muhammed, son of Elijah Muhammed and longstanding member of the Muhammed Ali entourage. The reason? Rezko used Muhammed in order to get lucrative contracts set aside for minorities.

Two months after Obama made these profound comments, on March 17, 2005, the Sun-Times reported that two restaurants at O’Hare “have been allowed to rake in millions of dollars, even though the Daley administration learned back in 2002 that the company running them was probably a phony minority “front” for Panda Express,” and Tony Rezko.

The company was Herbert Muhammed's Crucial, which didn't really do anything. Muhammed later sued Rezko, claiming that Rezko has stolen his home.

(And I'll be very impressed if you can name the artist who did the illustration.)

By the way: I didn't get very far into this Kos thread discussing the Jackson matter. My gag reflex set in when someone suggested that the Messiah Supporting National Barack Corporation was pursuing all this Blago stuff in order to "get" Obama.