Gov. Rod Blagojevich awoke yesterday to a ringing phone in his North Side Chicago home. It was 6 a.m., the day before the Illinois Democrat’s 52nd birthday.
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But Special Agent Robert Grant, who heads the FBI’s Chicago office, was not calling to wish Blagojevich well.
Grant told the governor he was under arrest. Two agents were outside his front door.
If he surrendered quietly, the agent assured Blagojevich, the media would not be notified. The powerful chief executive’s two young daughters would not see their father handcuffed.
“Is this a joke?” the governor replied.
For weeks, federal officials had been listening in on wiretaps as the governor and his aides brazenly plotted a myriad of exotic and creative ways to “monetize” his public office and sell President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.
The discussions were all laid out in the 76-page criminal complaint filed by the US Attorney’s Office yesterday.
In one free-wheeling conference call with a DC political consultant on Nov. 10, the governor discussed asking Obama to install him at some high-paying foundation or a nonprofit tied to the powerful labor union, SEIU.
They also discussed appointments to various Cabinet posts or jobs for the governor’s wife.
“Is there a play here, with these guys, with her,” Blagojevich inquired about the possibility of his wife Patti putting her securities licenses to work with a firm in Washington or New York.
Blagojevich later confided to his chief of staff, John Harris, that the Senate decision would be based on three criteria: “Our legal situation, our personal situation, my political situation.”
“This decision, like every other one, needs to be based upon on that,” he continued in the Nov. 12 conversation. “Legal. Personal. Political.”
“Legal is the hardest one to satisfy,” replied Harris, who was also charged.
The next day, Blagojevich told an adviser how to chat up an unnamed Obama aide about a foundation job without making it sound like it was tied to the Senate pick.
“It’s said and it’s unsaid,” the governor instructed.
Earlier in the process, Blagojevich boasted about how eager the supporters of some candidates were to engage in the blossoming bidding war.
“We were approached ‘pay to play,’ ” the governor said in a conversation recorded Oct. 31, five days before Election Day.
“That, you know, he’d raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him a senator [candidate],” he continued.
But none of the arrangements seemed to be enough for Blagojevich, who was overheard saying he was “struggling” financially and did “not want to be governor for the next two years.”
“I want to make money,” he insisted.
He chafed at what he saw were Obama’s efforts to install a favored candidate without a payoff. He rejected aides’ advice to “suck it up.”
“F- – – him,” Blagojevich said. “For nothing? F- – – him.”
Hoping to increase his leverage, Blagojevich, who had one of the lowest approval ratings among the nation’s governors, bragged that he might just appoint himself to the seat.
“S- – -, I’ll just send myself, you know what I’m saying,” Blagojevich bragged to an adviser. “I’m going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain.”
In fact, the governor likened his efforts to that of a hard-driving sports agent shopping a free agent to potential teams, according to the complaint.
On Nov. 10, the feds say, Blagojevich was overheard discussing ways to make money off the relationships he had cultivated as governor – or, as he put it, to “monetize” them.
But for all his brazenness, Blagojevich worried aloud about getting caught in such dealings.
When one aide suggested they compile a list of things Blagojevich wanted in exchange for the Senate seat, the governor cautioned, “It can’t be in writing.”
The “trick is how do you conduct indirectly a negotiation,” he said later.
Just five days ago, the governor implored a fund-raiser to be discreet in delivering the executive’s demands to a Senate hopeful.
“You gotta be careful how you express that,” he said. “And assume everybody’s listening, the whole world is listening. You hear me?”
The Senate talks were among the more sordid of the allegations contained in the bomb shell complaint.
Federal authorities also accused him of considering whether to call back $8 million in state aid to a children’s hospital after an executive failed to produce a $50,000 campaign donation.
A donor told federal investi gators he once discussed a high-level state appointment with Blagojevich while a $25,000 check sat on the governor’s desk.
As the feds closed in on Blagojevich, the governor’s scheming only increased.
He plotted with aides and advisers on whether to withdraw funds from Friends of Blagojevich to avoid having them frozen by the authorities.
Blagojevich saw appointing himself to the Senate as an opportunity to escape impeachment by the state Legislature and a chance to draw more resources if he was indicted as senator, according to the complaint.
Perhaps most shockingly, he actually hoped a move to Washington could help him repair his image in time for a presidential run in 2016.
Blagojevich even appeared to taunt investigators Monday, when asked by reporters about a story that he was under surveillance, likening it to Watergate.
“I believe there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me,” Blagojevich said. “If anybody wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead. Feel free to do it. I can tell you whatever I say is always lawful.”
Hours later, Blagojevich met the FBI agents at his door and was placed in handcuffs.