Obama Transition Team Releases List of Contacts with Blagojevich

George Wenschhof Bio

The five page memo is dated today and is addressed to President-elect Barack Obama and is from incoming White House counsel Greg Craig. It is entitled "Transition Staff Contacts with the Governor's Office". You can read it at Change.gov here.

As was indicated previously by President-elect Obama, it does not appear anything out of the ordinary transpired between the Governor and the transition staff. It is also apparent from reading the report that the U.S. Attorney's office interviewed the President-elect, Rahm Emanuel, and Valarie Jarrett last week.

Rahm Emanuel did speak to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on one or two occasions with one conversation pertaining to his resignation from his representative seat and taking the position of White House Chief of Staff. Interestingly, he first recommended Valarie Jarrett for the Senate seat prior to any discussions with the President-elect. When the Senate seat was discussed with Obama, Emanuel was informed the President-elect had a list of names to pass on for consideration but that he was not going to personally recommend a replacement. At that time Emanuel was also informed by Obama that Valarie Jarrett was joining the White House staff and had removed herself from consideration for the Senate seat.

The names that were referred to the Governor's office by Rahm Emanuel were Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Jesse Jackson Jr., Tammy Duckworth and Dan Hynes.

At no point was there any attempt by the Governor or his staff to extract any benefit from the transition staff.

--------------------

To receive "Daily Email Updates" from Air-it-Out with George Wenschhof, click on "Subscribe to this feed" below.