Oopsie...today we learn from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that surprise! Obama "dispatched" Emanuel to "to begin talking up Mr. Obama's preferred candidates."
So once again, Obama's initial "I had no contact" answer is proven to be inaccurate, or in a less sympathetic interpretation, a lie.
With jury selection beginning Thursday in the federal corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, observers say the flamboyant defendant may be aided by reports of White House horse-trading.
After all, if the White House can do it, why can't he?
Blagojevich is accused of a litany of hard-nosed political schemes ranging from kickbacks to intimidation. The complaint against him suggests the White House refused to be a part of his alleged attempts to extract favors in exchange for appointing certain people to replace the newly elected president in the U.S. Senate.
But the White House has admitted to engaging in a similar kind of political gamesmanship -- in two races, it tried to lure challengers out of their primary races against administration-backed incumbents by suggesting the possibility of an administration job opening.
Defense attorney Barry Agulnick said it will be hard to have a trial within a trial -- in other words, the judge is unlikely to allow blatant references to the White House controversy in a courtroom devoted to examining Blagojevich's dealings. But he said the stories about White House intervention in the Pennsylvania and Colorado Senate races have got to make the prosecution nervous as jury selection begins.
"It shows that it's something that's commonly done and I'm sure his defense is going be that he was selectively prosecuted," Agulnick said. "If they're intelligent jurors, they read newspapers, they watch 24-hour cable, they're on the Internet, they're going to get the message. ... It's got to be something that's going to be helpful to the defense."
He said the defense team would be able to plant the seed during jury selection, submitting questions to jurors that ask them about the White House job offer coverage. From there, he said, "a skillful attorney can bring it in indirectly" during the course of the trial.
