Documents Show Barack Obama Misled on Blagojevich Contacts

Judicial Watch, the conservative open government advocacy group, says it has obtained documents through a Freedom of Information Act request from the office of disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) which show that there was some contact between President-elect Obama and Blagojevich in the days before the governor was arrested on charges of attempting to auction Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. The documents, a December 3rd letter signed by Obama, and a letter from Obama transition team co-chairmen Valerie Jarrett and John Podesta, are in themselves not damning; but their existence raises more questions about the veracity of Obama's and the transitions' claims about contacts between the president-elect, members of his staff, and Blagojevich. It also calls into question the time line of what the transition knew about Blagojevich's schemes, and when.

Obama has stated that he had, "no contact with the governor's office." "I did not speak to the governor about these issues, that I'm sure of," he said. But the December 3rd letter from Obama to Blagojevich thanks the governor for meeting with Obama in Philadelphia. Clearly, it refers to the meeting that Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden held with all of the nation's governors on December 2nd. That meeting came weeks after Jarrett withdrew her name from consideration for the Senate vacancy after a November 10th conference call between Blagojevich and as yet unnamed "Washington, D.C. based advisers," among others. It was on that call that Blagojevich and his associates detailed his various schemes to benefit personally from the appointment of a new Senator. Jarrett, who was rumored to be Obama's choice for the seat, removed her name from consideration later that same night. Word of the conference call and he governor's behavior on it likely made its way back to the Obama transition team, which promptly pulled Jarret away from Blagojevich.

Just one week later, however, on November 17, Jarrett and Podesta penned their letter to Blagojevich in which they expressed the transition staff's, "strong interest in working with you [Blagojevich] in the months to come."

"As you may know we have formed a Presidential Transition Team so that the new Administration will be prepared to confront the extraordinary challenges facing our country. Your leadership and experience will be invaluable in this effort and we hope you will not hesitate to share your insights during this process."

These contacts between Obama and Blagojevich, and between the transition co-chairs and the governor, were not disclosed in the official transition team report on contacts between transition staff and the governor. Now, questions will be asked about other potential contacts that were also not disclosed. President-elect Obama has yet to hold a press conference exclusively on the Illinois Senate Scandal and the his transition team's report. This revelation is another example of how the Obama team's decision to try and ride out the scandal, instead of addressing it head on, was a bad one.