Reporting with Natasha Korecki
Two days before the 2008 presidential election, Rahm Emanuel called John Harris to pass on the soon-to-be president-elect's request that Valerie Jarrett be appointed to his senate seat, Harris has testified.
Harris was shopping with his kids at a Payless shoe store on Nov. 2, 2008 when he got Emanuel's call.
Emanuel told Harris that then-Sen. Barack Obama was interested in seeing a "close friend" of his appointed to his seat, Harris testified.
Harris said he understood that friend to be Valerie Jarrett, a longtime Chicago public official and close friend and fund-raiser for Obama.
"(Emanuel) asked whether it would be helpful if Sen. Obama called the governor to advocate for this individual," Harris testified. "I said sure."
"He said, 'I'll let you know," Harris testified, but for the moment, "He wanted to say that the senator had a preference."
If there was nothing illegal going on and everyone involved was behaving honestly, why did they use a middle man? What's the point of that? Other than to avoid being held accountable....Madigan and other politician's in Illinois who followed the Rezko trial knew Milorad was being closely watched by the fed's...he was implicated numerous times. Why Milorad didn't have a clue is quite strange.
Mike Madigan was smart enough not to call the Guv and his crew. How good Rahm have been so very very stupid to make phone calls like this? It's inexplicable. Madigan was out there repeatedly telling the press he would not speak with the Guv.
I don't know if there's any crime here, but it's this goofy kind of horse trading --the only way Chicago Democrats know how to deal with things-- that Obama, Rahm, Jarret, and David have brought to the White House and it's horribly unsuitable why of containing an oil spill, waging a war, or leading a great Nation.
What a disaster Illinois has sent to Washington.