This is getting to be a little tiresome. Today, news reports indicate that Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s appointee to head up his Justice Department, is also entangled in the sticky web that is Rod Blagojevich’s legacy in national politics.
Chicago Sun Times via Michelle Malkin-
Before Eric Holder was President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be attorney general, he was Gov. Blagojevich’s pick to sort out a mess involving Illinois’ long-dormant casino license.
Blagojevich and Holder appeared together at a March 24, 2004, news conference to announce Holder’s role as “special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board” – a post that was to pay Holder and his Washington, D.C. law firm up to $300,000.
Holder, however, omitted that event from his 47-page response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire made public this week – an oversight he plans to correct after a Chicago Sun-Times inquiry, Obama’s transition team indicated late Tuesday.
“Eric Holder has given hundreds of press interviews,” Obama transition spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. “He did his best to report them all to the committee, but as he noted in the questionnaire itself, some were undoubtedly missed in the effort to reconstruct a list of them.”
Holder signed the questionnaire on Sunday – five days after Blagojevich’s arrest for allegedly putting Obama’s U.S. Senate seat up for sale. The Judiciary Committee asked him to provide lists and “copies of transcripts or tape recordings of all speeches or talks delivered by you” and “all interviews you have given to newspapers, magazines or other publications.”
The March 2004 Chicago news conference where Holder and Blagojevich spoke was widely covered because of a controversial 4-1 Gaming Board vote earlier that month to allow a casino to be built in Rosemont. That vote defied the recommendation of the board’s staff, which had raised concerns about alleged organized-crime links to the Rosemont casino’s developer.
Ed Morrissey’s take -
Team Obama claims that Holder merely forgot about this part of his work experience, but that doesn’t wash. Holder completed the questionnaire after Blagojevich’s arrest on December 9th. With all of the attendant publicity, how likely was it that Holder forgot his work with Blagojevich — especially on casino investigations, where one might expect to find a cesspool of corruption?
Not bloody likely. It looks a lot more like Holder wanted to minimize his connections to Blagojevich and hoped people would forget about it. Reading the Sun-Times report, it’s easy to see why, too. Blagojevich had named crony and fundraiser Christopher Kelly to the Gaming Board, who would later face charges of corruption. Kelly’s business partner was Tony Rezko. Remember him? He’s the man singing to the feds about corruption in Illinois after being convicted on multiple counts of corruption himself. Kelly and Rezko had interests connected to the Rosemount casino; they had options on land next to the site to build a hotel.
…Remember that cesspool of corruption I mentioned? Looks like it existed after all — and the corruptocrat Blagojevich felt comfortable in appointing Holder to look after his interests, and Kelly’s, and Rezko’s. Maybe we should find out why.
