Golden (31 page)

From the outset, Madigan and Blagojevich were far apart. Blagojevich was pushing for several large programs while Madigan wanted to hold the line on spending. As talks continued with no progress and a deadline approaching, Blagojevich made a strategic decision he hoped would finally force the speaker to recognize his power as governor. He would essentially play chicken with the speaker, daring Madigan to not pass the budget and shut down state government.

“He still thinks I'm a backbencher,” Blagojevich complained to one longtime contributor. “Well I'm elected. I'm now governor of Illinois.”

Publicly, Blagojevich played it off like he was working hard to get things done for the people while Madigan was protecting business interests. But it was as much about gamesmanship, with Blagojevich trying to show the speaker who was boss.

The two men's differences were never on better display. During private meetings of the “Four Tops” (the Democratic and GOP leaders of both the House and Senate) Madigan was infatuated with the process of putting the budget together, obsessing over details and ensuring that things were just as he wanted them and then rarely talking about any of it in public. Blagojevich, on the other hand, showed no interest in the process of budget-making. He showed up late to those same meetings and talked about the 1962 Cubs lineup before leaving to make some splash for the press.

Blagojevich wasn't actually disinterested. He became energized by the fight with Madigan and his lawmakers. Using his powers as governor, he called special sessions, demanding legislators leave their homes to come back to Springfield even though there was nothing for them to vote on. As pressure mounted and the prospect of shutting down state government became more real, Madigan at one point whispered to Monk, “We think he likes this.” That, of course, was exactly the impression Blagojevich was trying to give.

Lisa Madigan also wasn't off limits. When the attorney general's office declared unconstitutional Blagojevich's idea to raise $200 million by mortgaging the Thompson Center, he upset feminists and female lawmakers when he said he viewed the legal opinion as nothing more than a maneuver in his ongoing spat with the speaker. “It's her father, you know, I can't fault her,” he said. “I've got two daughters. I hope they back me on stuff that I do.”

The fighting wasn't unanimously endorsed by everybody close to Blagojevich. Chris Kelly complained to Tusk that fighting with Madigan was a bad political move, a sentiment Tusk disagreed with. Later, Kelly and Tusk got into another heated exchange when Kelly ripped several ideas Tusk had been pushing, such as the board of education plan and various health-care initiatives. Kelly called them “all smoke and mirrors,” which caused Tusk to fly into a quick rage and then decide he and Kelly didn't need to speak much ever again.

Blagojevich wasn't totally alone in his fight. He had enlisted the support of Senate President Emil Jones. Since making his snippy comments at the George Ryan portrait unveiling, Jones had become closer to Blagojevich,
especially with the governor realizing he needed somebody to have his back in the legislature given his poor relationship with everybody else.

As budget talks continued, the two men traveled the state making their case, portraying Madigan as the enemy of Democratic ideals. Blagojevich was back in campaign mode, keyed up and in the middle of a fight. “He showed he was willing to shut down government and he wasn't worried about the public perception,” Tusk recalled. “He felt he could win that fight. Eventually, Madigan just wanted it to end.”

Nearly two months past the deadline, it finally did, with Blagojevich getting much of what he wanted. But one of the bigger points Madigan made went right to the issue of Blagojevich's untrustworthiness. In an unprecedented move, Madigan and lawmakers forced Blagojevich to sign “memorandums of understanding” that detailed his spending promises. That way they had a piece of paper with his signature on it if he tried to renege on a budget pledge he made.

Just days after the budget deal was finalized, Blagojevich, Kelly, Monk, Tusk, and Wyma arrived in Boston for the Democratic National Convention. Obama, now a Democratic nominee for US Senate, was giving the keynote address.

By that point, Blagojevich and Obama had become not-so-friendly rivals, and Obama's growing ascendance only made Blagojevich angry and jealous. Still, Blagojevich needed to be there. He was a Democratic governor of a large state and was building a resume for a possible national run. It soon became clear that national run wasn't going to be anytime soon. As Obama's speech was tearing the roof off the FleetCenter, Blagojevich sat in the crowd becoming more envious and crestfallen as it became clear he was being eclipsed right then as Illinois's most beloved Democrat.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but upon returning to Chicago, Blagojevich became less and less engaged in governing. He retreated back to working almost exclusively away from the office, ordering people around on his speakerphone at home or working out of his new campaign office on Ravenswood Avenue.

Less than two miles east of his house, Blagojevich had poured more than $200,000 into renovating and decorating the third floor offices in an old loft factory building. He made sure nearly everything was in the mission
architectural style, French doors separating his personal office from the rest of the space that featured a kitchen area/conference room and two small offices with computers that held massive fund-raising databases. Blagojevich's personal office, which looked out onto Ravenswood, was similar to his study at home—a grand desk, comfortable chairs, and a leather couch. A few friends and supporters liked to call the headquarters the Clubhouse.

Blagojevich worked out of the campaign offices on most Mondays and Fridays, arriving in casual attire, making calls for a few hours, and then changing into running gear to go for a jog. Then he went shopping.

Sometimes several days a week, he bopped around downtown buying new ties with the help of a personal shopper at Saks Fifth Avenue or picking up suit swatches from Oxxford. Since becoming governor, his taste for fine clothes had amplified. He was dropping thousands of dollars on ties and at least $4,000 for a single custom-fitted suit, of which he bought more than a dozen a year. During his six years as governor, Blagojevich and his wife spent $400,000 on clothes—more than they spent on their nanny.

Making a little more than $150,000 a year as governor, the costly clothing was pushing the Blagojeviches' budget. Patti was holding things together by bringing in as much or more than Rod in real estate commissions, including from Rezko, who met with the first lady when she showed up at Rezmar's offices with newborn Annie in tow.

Across town, Blagojevich would meet with Kelly at the Palace Grill, a well-known diner across the street from the city's 911 center and just blocks from the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks. While Blagojevich's security cooled their heels at the front of the restaurant, the governor and Kelly grabbed a table in the back and spoke in hushed tones for hours.

Although Blagojevich wasn't showing up for work, he still called relentlessly. It became so bad he and Tusk quarreled about it more than once. “I have to run the government,” Tusk would bark at the governor. “Stop calling me.”

While Blagojevich loved working the phone on his schedule, he still hated when the phone calls were coming in the other way. US Senators, cabinet members, and governors were constantly trying to contact him about various issues, and Blagojevich was ignoring all of them. “He figured they were all calling with bad news or were going to ask him to do something he didn't want to do. So he'd simply refuse to call them back,” a former top aide recalled.

During the Hurricane Katrina crisis, then-senator Obama called Blagojevich to ask his advice about what sorts of services Illinois could provide for fleeing New Orleans residents. The city of Houston was being overloaded, and he wanted to offer Illinois's help. Tusk, who was at Blagojevich's house at the time, took the call. When Obama asked to talk to Blagojevich, the governor waved him off, telling Tusk to tell Obama he wasn't available.

Another reason Blagojevich wasn't coming into work was that controversies percolating at several state boards were becoming troublesome.

On April 18, 2004, one of the three telephone lines into a large home in Chicago's tony North Shore suburbs received a call. It was almost noon.

“Hello,” a man there answered in an expectant voice.

“Stuart,” came the reply. And Stuart Levine knew immediately who it was. Jacob Kiferbaum, a friend going back years who had gotten rich as a corrupt contractor, was on the other end sounding almost giddy.

Kiferbaum built hospitals. And at the time of the call, his construction firm was going to build a controversial one that many thought was unnecessary in Crystal Lake, northwest of Chicago. As part of that project for Mercy Hospital, he had agreed to kick back $1 million to Levine and Rezko in large part because Levine knew Rezko was very close to Blagojevich.

Now Kiferbaum and Levine, a powerful member of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, were trying to worm into yet another proposal, a plan for an arm of Naperville's Edward Hospital, to be built in nearby Plainfield. The contractor was calling to go over a bit of theater they had just performed.

To make the deal happen, Kiferbaum and Levine had agreed to a “chance meeting” between them and Edward's chief executive officer, Pam Davis, at a local restaurant. Kiferbaum scheduled the breakfast meeting at the Egg Shell Cafe in Deerfield, where he pleaded his case to Davis that Edward should hire his firm because the approval Edward needed from the state board that oversees hospital expansions probably hinged on whether his
company got the job. Kiferbaum and Nicholas Hurtgen, a senior managing director at Bear Stearns & Co. in Chicago, had been working Davis since the prior December. Kiferbaum wanted to build the $90 million hospital and medical office building, and Hurtgen's firm was in line to receive financing work in the deal. They told Davis they had a powerful connection on the regulatory board, Levine, and that he had the ability to push her project through if Kiferbaum were hired. To demonstrate they were serious, they had set up the breakfast where Kiferbaum would arrive with Davis, and Levine would be there with Hurtgen.

After finishing his breakfast and heading for the door, Levine stopped by the other table to stress to Davis that Kiferbaum's word was good and that he could do the job. He had done it before during a pair of construction projects at Rosalind Franklin University, where Levine and Kiferbaum both were board members, Levine told her. Of course, Levine didn't mention Kiferbaum paid a $1.7 million kickback to make sure he got that work, too.

The message was delivered, but the three men weren't the only ones hiding secrets that morning over their toast and coffee. Davis had been cooperating with the FBI for weeks after reporting that she was being extorted over her hospital's plans, and she was wearing a recording device in her bra. At agents' direction, Davis had first suggested a meeting where the men showed her that they really were working with Levine. The three men thought they were gaming Davis, but really it was the other way around.

Davis's cooperation allowed the FBI to get a court's permission to tap into the phones at Levine's home and capture the conversations that followed. It was one of the earliest pieces of an investigation that would last years, searing the earth of Illinois's political culture and toppling some of the most untouchable insiders in the state's notorious history. But on that mid-April 2004 morning, that ultimate outcome couldn't have been in the minds of Jacob Kiferbaum and Stuart Levine. Instead, they just wanted to gloat on the phone about that morning's scheme.

“It went perfectly,” Kiferbaum told Levine as the FBI listened in. “She understood, uh, she's supposed to call her attorneys tomorrow.”