FBI Says Illinois Governor Tried to Sell Senate Seat

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Illinois Governor Arrested on Federal Charges

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been arrested on federal charges. Prosecutors have been investigating Blagojevich's administration for at least three years.

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"The trick . . . is how do you conduct indirectly . . . a negotiation," the governor told Harris in an intercepted conversation Nov. 4, the day of the presidential election.

The following day, the two discussed employment options at private foundations that Blagojevich said are "heavily dependent on federal aid" and on which the White House might have the most "influence," investigators said.

"I've got this thing and it's [expletive] golden and uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing," the governor told an unnamed adviser in a Nov. 5 call the government taped. "And I can always use it. I can parachute me there."

Blagojevich operated under mounting financial pressure and sought a way for him and his wife, Patti, to profit by making as much as $300,000 a year, the documents said. The couple have two young daughters.

One candidate for the Senate seat, described in court filings only as Candidate 5, promised through an associate to help the governor raise money for a possible reelection bid, Blagojevich said Dec. 4 on government tapes. "We were approached 'pay to play,' " the governor said of the alleged approach by the associate to Candidate 5. "That, you know, he'd raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made [Candidate 5] a senator."

The court filings indicate that Blagojevich and his political team consulted with at least one unnamed person who advised Obama after the November election. At other times, though, the governor used profanities to describe Obama, who he said would not give him anything more than appreciation for picking a Senate candidate to his liking, according to the criminal complaint.

At another point, Blagojevich and his associates allegedly discussed whether they had the power to make an interim appointment for the House seat that will be vacated by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D), who will become Obama's White House chief of staff, and whether they could secure fundraising help for themselves as part of the process, according to the court papers.

The charges yesterday came in the form of a criminal complaint, based on a sworn statement from 22-year FBI veteran Daniel W. Cain. By using the technique, law enforcement officials were able to share more details about their investigation and the conversations they captured than would normally appear in a federal grand jury indictment, according to former prosecutors who reviewed the document.

FBI agents were "thoroughly disgusted and revolted by what they heard," Robert D. Grant, the FBI special agent in charge, told reporters.

The new wiretap evidence supplemented a long-running case authorities had been building against top Illinois officials.

The complaint cited testimony by several financiers with Democratic connections at the corruption trial earlier this year of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who had raised money for Blagojevich and Obama and worked on real estate deals with Blagojevich's wife. Three witnesses told the jury in Rezko's trial that they had crafted lists of political jobs or state contracts they hoped to win in exchange for campaign contributions to Blagojevich. The FBI later obtained a list created by Friends of Blagojevich that itemizes donors and amounts the campaign was seeking.

The case once again thrusts Fitzgerald, Chicago's U.S. attorney, into the spotlight at the intersection of politics and law enforcement. The New York native won the conviction last year of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in a case that centered on the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity. President Bush later commuted Libby's prison sentence.

One legal source who has advised the Obama campaign suggested last month that the new president might keep Fitzgerald, a Bush appointee, in the U.S. attorney job. Fitzgerald is a political independent.

Staff writers Peter Slevin and Kari Lydersen in Chicago and Shailagh Murray in Washington and research editor Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.