Golden (85 page)

The cross of Blagojevich would be a rare spectacle as anticipated as the examination a few years earlier of Chicago Outfit boss Joey “the Clown” Lombardo by Assistant US Attorney Mitch Mars. And it might be about as entertaining. Schar glared ahead, and Zagel told him he could proceed.

“Thank you, Judge,” Schar said quickly. Then he surprised anyone who thought the prosecutor might ease into things. Punch number one was sailing right for Blagojevich's face.

“Mr. Blagojevich, you are a convicted liar, correct?” Schar said sharply. Jurors would later call it the most memorable moment of the entire trial, and they were immediately riveted in their chairs.

Instantly, both Blagojevich and one of his lawyers were talking at the same time. With Blagojevich starting to give an answer that started with “I would—” while Sorosky objected over him. Zagel stepped in to overrule the defense.

“Yes or no?” Schar asked, with no dip in the intensity of his voice. One thing Schar could seemingly produce instantly was righteous anger, and his words were dripping with indignation.

“Yes,” Blagojevich answered.

What Schar was getting at was that just after he was convicted in 2010 of lying to the FBI, Blagojevich held a press conference where, the prosecutor contended, he was lying once again. He had told the media that his conviction was unfair, Schar said, leading Sorosky to object again. But it hadn't taken long to draw Blagojevich into a brawl. He spoke right through his own lawyer.

“I have a strong opinion about that if you'd like to hear it,” he said, as Zagel told the room that the ex-governor was waiving his attorney's objection. “This is why we have appellate courts,” Blagojevich continued.

“It's fair to say that you wanted people to believe you had not lied to the FBI. Yes or no?” Schar pressed.

“I wanted them to know what the truth is, and there's a process that will still unfold, and we're determined to pursue that—that process,” Blagojevich said, moving things back to what he was trying to say about an appeal.

“The answer is yes,” Schar said flatly.

“Pardon me?” Blagojevich replied, as if he had been talking to someone else and been interrupted.

“The answer is yes to my question,” Schar repeated.

“What is your question again?” said Blagojevich.

Well, it was obvious this could take a while. Zagel had the court reporter just read the question back—the one about whether Blagojevich wanted people to believe that he had not lied to the FBI. But Blagojevich just gave yet another answer about truth and the process, leading Schar to ask if what he meant was that Blagojevich wanted it known that “the process” was unfair.

That brought a simultaneous objection from both Sorosky and Goldstein, as both scrambled to try to protect Blagojevich. But it didn't matter.

“No,” Blagojevich said to Schar.

What Blagojevich had said at the press conference the year before was that he had been convicted because the FBI had not allowed a court reporter into the room when FBI Agent Murphy interviewed him about fund-raising. The insinuation was that the FBI had blocked the recording of the session, and if it had been taped, the “real” truth would be known and the first jury to hear his case would have thought he was innocent. But he had left something out, right? Schar asked.

“I don't know. I say a lot,” Blagojevich shrugged, once again plowing over a Sorosky objection. The questioning was virtual chaos, but Blagojevich seemed almost to be enjoying sparring with his accuser. “What did I say? What did I miss?”

What he hadn't told everyone at the press conference was that the FBI had brought recording equipment to the interview, Schar said. Blagojevich tried to put it on his attorneys, leading the prosecutor to pause and say that his question had been very simple. Didn't he give a statement to the press, and in that statement had he not said that his conviction had been unfair because the FBI hadn't allowed the interview to be taped?

Blagojevich said his lawyers had told him that a court reporter wasn't going to be allowed.

“No court reporter. That's what I said,” Blagojevich answered, seemingly trying to draw a line between a tape recorder and a human typing a record. What he had been trying to say was that he did not lie to the FBI. Blagojevich then started to say how he had never even put on a defense in the first case—which Schar cut off with an objection of his own.

“Let me explain something to you that will make this a lot easier, and it will make it a lot easier because, generally speaking, when witnesses argue with lawyers, the witness loses in the end,” Zagel finally said.

“If you can answer a question with a yes or no, answer it. You may feel that things are left out that should be added. If that's your feeling, wait for your lawyer to stand up on redirect examination, and you can clarify it. That way we'll go through this in less time and in less suffering for everybody in the courtroom.”

Fair enough. Schar went back to his point. Blagojevich had shown up in the lobby of the Dirksen US Courthouse after his conviction and had said that he was unfairly convicted because the FBI hadn't agreed to having a court reporter when, in fact, the agents had appeared ready to actually record the entire thing.

“They never told me that,” Blagojevich finally said.

Schar pounded it home by pointing out that the agents had said right in front of Blagojevich that they had recording equipment and that it had been testified to at his first trial. Blagojevich had been the one to refuse a recording. For another few minutes they went around and around, with Schar quizzing Blagojevich on his memory of what had been said before the interview began and Blagojevich insisting he could only remember that a court reporter hadn't been allowed. Blagojevich didn't remember any recording equipment, he said. And Schar was more than happy to keep trying to pin him down and point out the lie to the public, making Blagojevich look shifty and manipulative. Did Blagojevich remember the FBI offering to record the interview?

Blagojevich would only say that he didn't see equipment.

“Sir, over and over again, you have said on TV that you believe the process that led to that interview was unfair because you weren't allowed to have a court reporter,” Schar said. Neither man was backing down. “Yes or no?”

“How do you define over and over?” Blagojevich answered. “How many times would that be?”

What was clear was that Blagojevich was no ordinary witness. He was deeply skilled in the political art of asking the question he wanted to answer and finding ways to avoid ones he didn't like or that had an answer that was
negative for him. It was like a debate, when the moderator asks a pointed question to a candidate about taxes, only to get an answer about the candidate's position on handguns, or when a politician at a press conference gives a nonanswer to a reporter's question and then points at someone else for a new question. Few politicians in Illinois history were as crafty as Blagojevich when it came to that kind of stick-and-move answer. But there was a slight problem. The “move” part of that combo was not an option in this situation. There was only the witness stand and no one else to point to. Schar was asking the questions, and Judge Zagel was there to make sure the rules were followed.

“You can remember that you were eastbound west of the Mississippi River from the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch
editorial board interview when Dusty Baker called you several years ago, and it is your testimony you do not recall the FBI offering to record the entire interview of you in March of 2005. Is that your testimony?” Schar asked incredulously.

Now Blagojevich was ready to shift the burden again. It was Schar's fault. He had never spoken to Blagojevich about what was or wasn't to be recorded.

“You didn't arrange that meeting with me,” he said. “We have lawyers you guys talked to. You guys communicated with my attorneys, not me.”

In the end, it took Zagel to move things ahead. He looked down and asked Blagojevich if the answer was that he could not recall an offer to record the conversation.

Schar seemed convinced the point was made. As a politician, wasn't it true that Blagojevich frequently found himself lying to the public?

“I'd object to that,” Blagojevich said, seemingly meaning it. Not just saying he didn't like the question, but actually objecting. It didn't matter anyway, as one of Blagojevich's lawyers objected, too, and Schar withdrew the question and asked it in a different way. Did messages go out to the public that Blagojevich knew to be untrue?

Maybe Schar could give him an example, Blagojevich said. He tried to be as truthful as possible.

So the prosecutor brought up November 10, 2008. Blagojevich had been recorded talking to Doug Scofield that day and telling him he wanted a press leak that he'd had a good, long conversation with Jesse Jackson Jr. the prior weekend about the Senate seat. The governor had wanted it in the air that Jackson was being considered.

Right, Blagojevich said on the stand, he had told Scofield to get that information into a gossip column.

“That was a lie,” Schar said.

“That was a misdirection play in politics,” Blagojevich answered.

Time for rope-a-dope: round two.

It was not factual; that was right, Blagojevich agreed.

So by not factual, did Blagojevich mean that was untrue?

Sure, Blagojevich answered, it was untrue. On that word, they could agree.

OK, said Schar, so it was a lie?

Not so fast. Blagojevich said he didn't see it that way.
Lie
wasn't a word he wanted to adopt. Well, said the prosecutor, it was “false,” right? There was no conversation with Congressman Jackson. There had been no meeting, and Blagojevich was telling a longtime friend and adviser to tell someone in the news business that there had been one.

“I had several conversations with Congressman Jackson,” Blagojevich said, “just not that weekend.”

Hmmm. Well, Blagojevich had not had a long conversation with Jackson that weekend, and he hadn't had a good conversation with him that weekend. In fact, he had not had any conversation whatsoever that weekend. Schar said Blagojevich had floated that idea knowing that no one would contradict it. Congressman Jackson wouldn't deny it, right? Schar asked.

Right, said Blagojevich. It would help Jackson's politics. So Schar asked again. Blagojevich had leaked a lie, on purpose, because he believed it was to his advantage and because he knew he could get away with it.

“For political reasons, I was floating that information because I was trying to develop the dynamic to get the Madigan deal that I've talked a lot about and would love to answer questions about, but I'm sorry, that was a run-on answer,” said Blagojevich.

Blagojevich had repeated what he was doing in another call to Harris and Quinlan, Schar pointed out. He had told Scofield to leak the fake rumor to Michael Sneed at the
Sun-Times.
Blagojevich had even said on the call, “Who's going to contradict that, you know?”

The prosecutor stepped forward to show Blagojevich the transcript of the call. There in black and white was Blagojevich saying just what Schar had said he did. No one would contradict that rumor if it hit ink.

Right, Blagojevich finally said after having a look. It would advance the goals of both politicians. He would get it out there that Jackson was being looked at for the Senate, maybe spurring something like the Madigan deal, and Jackson would look good in the press because it would look like Blagojevich was really considering him. Win-win.

But wasn't the point really to deceive? Schar said. The intended recipients of the column item would have been other elected officials.

“It's the quarterback faking a handoff and throwing long,” Blagojevich said, sounding proud of the analogy. “It's part of the business. You know what I'm saying?”

Schar did, though the fakery didn't stop there. Wasn't Blagojevich also going to trick the public? Not surprisingly, “no” was the answer. Blagojevich said he saw that as a message designed for the political world. It would be received in the places he wanted it received inside the establishment.

OK, how about November 5 that year? Another press conference, this time just after Obama was elected and Blagojevich was going to be questioned about the process of picking a new senator. He had gone over and over what he might say. Wasn't that correct? Schar asked. Blagojevich knew he was going to get questions on whether he might want the seat for his own. The prosecutor tried to remind Blagojevich that he had been asked about himself when Senate possibilities had come up and that he had told the reporter who asked him, “I'm not interested in the US Senate.”

Lie, right? Yes or no, said Schar.

“You know, I hadn't decided what I was going to do, so I would say no, I hadn't reached a decision,” Blagojevich said. “I guess, it's—it's a political answer, but I—I can't say that I was completely false.”

And so, again, Schar began the task of nailing the proverbial Jell-O to the proverbial wall. Blagojevich had been asked, “How about yourself?” by a reporter at the press conference. And his answer had been that he was not interested. From many, many tapes, it was clear that in “fact,” or whatever you want to call it, Blagojevich was interested in the potential of sending himself to the Senate. Still, Blagojevich insisted it was not a lie. He wasn't really
interested
in going to the Senate, he told Schar, he just held out the possibility of sending himself “if things got real bad,” and if he ever made a decision, he, Blagojevich, would be among the candidates to think about.

To Blagojevich, this was not a contradiction.

“At that press conference, you looked the camera straight in the eye, correct?” Schar asked.

“Show me if I was looking at the camera or was I looking at somebody else? I don't know,” was the answer.