Remember back in the 1990s, there were rumors about Bill Clinton that many people chose to ignore, and then the first Clinton scandal, Whitewater surfaced about 14 months in his presidency, followed by the Paula Jones Scandal, followed by the salacious Monica Lewinsky scandal, followed by the Juanita Broaddrick scandal, the Bhuddist temple fundraising scandal, the Ron Brown fundraising scandal, the Ron Brown plane crash, etc., ad infinitum.
Well, it looks like our first quota-hire president out of the corrupt Chicago political machine is following in Slick Willie’s crooked foot steps. A CBS news article reports: “The defense team for deposed Gov. Rod Blagojevich has moved to subpoena President Barack Obama to testify at Blagojevich’s corruption trial. Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to charges that accuse him of scheming to sell or trade the Senate seat left vacant by Obama’s election as president. The motion filed Thursday says Obama was interviewed for two hours by prosecutors and FBI agents regarding the Blagojevich case, and the defense filed a motion asking for all transcripts, notes and reports from that interview. But the defense never received the documents, the motion said. The motion also claims that prosecutors say Blagojevich met a labor union official whom he believed to be in contact with President Obama, and told the official he would appoint a certain candidate to the vacant Senate seat. In exchange, Blagojevich expected to be named secretary of Health and Human Services, the motion says prosecutors claim.”
Now that last part is extremely interesting. We all remember Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich trying to sell the Senate seat Obama left empty in 2008, but this is the first news of Obama offering Blagojevich a bribe to put someone Obama wanted into that Senate seat.
The article continues “But Obama has said he was ‘confident that no representatives of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat,’ the motion says. The labor union official is expected to be a prosecution witness, and since his story is contradicted by Obama’s public statement, Blagojevich’s defense team wants to subpoena Obama. It would be extremely unusual for a sitting president to testify at a corruption trial. History is replete with cases in which presidents have been subpoenaed or have provided evidence in federal cases, the motion said, followed by a list of presidents who had been deposed or testified in civil or criminal cases.”
Obama will likely give a deposition rather than appear in court. It’s a shame a prosecutor won’t get a chance to trip up Obama without his teleprompter/crutch.
What could really open the whole Obama can of worms (one hopes) is when the Republicans seize control of Congress and then they can start playing all kinds of games with congressional committees, investigations, and special prosecutors (maybe that long form birth certificate can finally be subpoenaed). Remember Kenneth Starr? The only thing that saved Bill Clinton was the relatively prosperous economy, but Obama doesn’t have a prosperous economy. He’s got a Depression on his hands. Obama may soon be looking forward to being a one term president.
