His testimony, backed up with new wiretaps that seemed to cut in his favor, had played out so positively that even a prosecution-sympathetic observer such as myself was left second-guessing whether he really deserved to be on trial with little brother.
And then it all blew up in Robert Blagojevich's face in just the first 15 minutes of cross-examination by federal prosecutor Chris Niewoehner as the former chairman of Friends of Blagojevich was left trying to explain a previously unheard conversation in which he counseled brother Rod to conduct "horse trading" with then President-elect Barack Obama to kill the federal criminal investigation of his administration.
...
"If you can get Obama to get
Fitzgerald to close the investigation on you, it completely provides you with total clarity," Robert Blagojevich was quoted as telling Rod in a transcript read by Niewoehner, suggesting this as a more realistic gambit than angling for a Cabinet appointment.
On the witness stand, Robert argued his suggestion had nothing to do with Jarrett's appointment, but didn't offer a more convincing explanation. He said he meant it "in the context of what politicians do."
http://www.suntimes.com/news/brown/2513240,CST-NWS-brown20.article
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