Will feds help voters by Election Day?
Will feds help voters by Election Day?
BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
September 24, 2006
C opyright by The Chicago Sun Times
We need a voter guide to the November election. Not the glossy, colorful kind that civic groups and political parties hand out. We need a voter guide from the feds. We need to know before we go to the polls if, in fact, Gov. Blagojevich has a target on his back.
Can the U.S. attorney, short of announcing an indictment, actually tell us that?
In the crooked state of Illinois, this is hardly a new question.
Before Patrick Fitzgerald was the U.S. attorney here, Scott Lassar was.
As far as I could ever see, Lassar did his job well, intelligently and carefully. As a Clinton appointee, from 1997-2000, and before that as an assistant U.S. attorney, he investigated Republicans and Democrats. Though some will disagree, I never thought Lassar had a political agenda and still don't.
But in the fall of 1998 he made a decision that people, even now, talk about. George Ryan was running for governor against Glenn Poshard. Poshard made the deaths of six children in a fiery crash an issue in that campaign, arguing if the truck driver responsible hadn't been able to bribe someone in the secretary of state's office, he wouldn't have had the commercial driver's license that enabled him to kill those kids. Ryan was the secretary of state when that bribe went down.
In early October 1998, less than a month before the November election,Lassar's office announced the first indictments in Operation Safe Road. The people charged were low-level hacks accused of converting cash bribes into campaign funds for Ryan. But Ryan, said Lassar, was not a target of the probe.
Even so, Lassar was attacked by Ryan supporters who felt the timing of the indictments so close to the election sullied their guy. And he was assailed by Poshard's people for not providing more details of the case, which Lassar put under seal until after the election.
What are the rules?
"There are no rules," said Lassar, now a partner at the law firm of Sidley & Austin.
"The question is do you indict something that's ready to go right before an election? Or do you hold it until after the election?
"There aren't any rules on that," he told me by phone from his office. "My thinking is that you shouldn't hold off."
And Ryan wasn't under investigation?
"Right. We had no idea this was going to go to him ... he wasn't on the radar screen," said Lassar.
Did Lassar agonize?
"No," he said flatly, then adding, "Maybe I should have."
Regrets?
"It kind of turned around to bite me. That doesn't mean it wasn't the right decision."
It bit him, all right. Ryan was ultimately indicted, convicted and just this month, sentenced to 61/2 years in federal prison, but not before a total of 75 others were convicted first.
The George Ryan story was the long civic nightmare that gave us Rod Blagojevich. He was elected in 2002 on the promise that he would be the antidote to corruption and clout that has had such a chokehold on government.
The feds, if not offering a voter guide exactly, have however provided a few road signs along the path of their probe.
First, there was the explosive plea agreement of Joe Cari, a national Democratic strategist and fund-raiser, whose lawyer, by the way, is Scott Lassar.
Last year Cari admitted to being part of an attempted extortion and kickback scheme to give lucrative state investment business to big political contributors.
It was the feds who scripted Cari's plea agreement, and it was the feds who dropped in references to "Public Official A" and two associates who dreamed up that "fund-raising strategy."
And it's feds who have quietly allowed that Blagojevich is "Public Official A." And that the two associates are his top fund-raisers, Antoin "Tony" Rezko and Christopher G. Kelly.
It was also the feds who permitted Attorney General Lisa Madigan to release an exceptionally detailed letter from U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald, citing "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" in the Blagojevich administration.
State hiring, pension business, campaign fund-raising, even the governor's personal finances are under the federal microscope. Blagojevich has been unwavering in saying he is clean on all counts.
I don't think the feds will announce in the next 44 days whether Blagojevich himself is the subject of their probe. But I do think that right before the election, they will tell us more than we currently know.
On Oct. 27, and then again on Nov. 1, Stuart Levine's plea agreements will be made public in federal court. He's the guy who was advising Cari on how to get pension business.
"If Levine's plea agreement is as explicit as Joe's, it could be quite a bombshell," said Lassar.
Looking for a voter guide for the coming election?
Consider Levine's plea required reading.
BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
September 24, 2006
C opyright by The Chicago Sun Times
We need a voter guide to the November election. Not the glossy, colorful kind that civic groups and political parties hand out. We need a voter guide from the feds. We need to know before we go to the polls if, in fact, Gov. Blagojevich has a target on his back.
Can the U.S. attorney, short of announcing an indictment, actually tell us that?
In the crooked state of Illinois, this is hardly a new question.
Before Patrick Fitzgerald was the U.S. attorney here, Scott Lassar was.
As far as I could ever see, Lassar did his job well, intelligently and carefully. As a Clinton appointee, from 1997-2000, and before that as an assistant U.S. attorney, he investigated Republicans and Democrats. Though some will disagree, I never thought Lassar had a political agenda and still don't.
But in the fall of 1998 he made a decision that people, even now, talk about. George Ryan was running for governor against Glenn Poshard. Poshard made the deaths of six children in a fiery crash an issue in that campaign, arguing if the truck driver responsible hadn't been able to bribe someone in the secretary of state's office, he wouldn't have had the commercial driver's license that enabled him to kill those kids. Ryan was the secretary of state when that bribe went down.
In early October 1998, less than a month before the November election,Lassar's office announced the first indictments in Operation Safe Road. The people charged were low-level hacks accused of converting cash bribes into campaign funds for Ryan. But Ryan, said Lassar, was not a target of the probe.
Even so, Lassar was attacked by Ryan supporters who felt the timing of the indictments so close to the election sullied their guy. And he was assailed by Poshard's people for not providing more details of the case, which Lassar put under seal until after the election.
What are the rules?
"There are no rules," said Lassar, now a partner at the law firm of Sidley & Austin.
"The question is do you indict something that's ready to go right before an election? Or do you hold it until after the election?
"There aren't any rules on that," he told me by phone from his office. "My thinking is that you shouldn't hold off."
And Ryan wasn't under investigation?
"Right. We had no idea this was going to go to him ... he wasn't on the radar screen," said Lassar.
Did Lassar agonize?
"No," he said flatly, then adding, "Maybe I should have."
Regrets?
"It kind of turned around to bite me. That doesn't mean it wasn't the right decision."
It bit him, all right. Ryan was ultimately indicted, convicted and just this month, sentenced to 61/2 years in federal prison, but not before a total of 75 others were convicted first.
The George Ryan story was the long civic nightmare that gave us Rod Blagojevich. He was elected in 2002 on the promise that he would be the antidote to corruption and clout that has had such a chokehold on government.
The feds, if not offering a voter guide exactly, have however provided a few road signs along the path of their probe.
First, there was the explosive plea agreement of Joe Cari, a national Democratic strategist and fund-raiser, whose lawyer, by the way, is Scott Lassar.
Last year Cari admitted to being part of an attempted extortion and kickback scheme to give lucrative state investment business to big political contributors.
It was the feds who scripted Cari's plea agreement, and it was the feds who dropped in references to "Public Official A" and two associates who dreamed up that "fund-raising strategy."
And it's feds who have quietly allowed that Blagojevich is "Public Official A." And that the two associates are his top fund-raisers, Antoin "Tony" Rezko and Christopher G. Kelly.
It was also the feds who permitted Attorney General Lisa Madigan to release an exceptionally detailed letter from U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald, citing "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" in the Blagojevich administration.
State hiring, pension business, campaign fund-raising, even the governor's personal finances are under the federal microscope. Blagojevich has been unwavering in saying he is clean on all counts.
I don't think the feds will announce in the next 44 days whether Blagojevich himself is the subject of their probe. But I do think that right before the election, they will tell us more than we currently know.
On Oct. 27, and then again on Nov. 1, Stuart Levine's plea agreements will be made public in federal court. He's the guy who was advising Cari on how to get pension business.
"If Levine's plea agreement is as explicit as Joe's, it could be quite a bombshell," said Lassar.
Looking for a voter guide for the coming election?
Consider Levine's plea required reading.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 10:21 AM
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