“From the Blagojevich Criminal Complaint.

Since approximately 2003, the government has been investigating allegations
of illegal activity occurring in State of Illinois government as part of the administration of Governor ROD BLAGOJEVICH. As further detailed below, the investigation has developed evidence that: (a) beginning not later than in or about 2002, ROD BLAGOJEVICH has conspired with multiple individuals”
From the Washington Post December 22, 2008.

“The wide-ranging public corruption probe that led to the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich got its first big break when a grandmother of six walked into a breakfast meeting with shakedown artists wearing an FBI wire.
Pamela Meyer Davis had been trying to win approval from a state health planning board for an expansion of Edward Hospital, the facility she runs in a Chicago suburb, but she realized that the only way to prevail was to retain a politically connected construction company and a specific investment house. Instead of succumbing to those demands, she went to the FBI and U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in late 2003 and agreed to secretly record conversations about the project.

Her tapes led investigators down a twisted path of corruption that over five years has ensnared a collection of behind-the-scenes figures in Illinois government, including Joseph Cari Jr., a former Democratic National Committee member, and disgraced businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko.””

“On February 27, a Chicagoland website, Illinois PayToPlay, cited the star witness in the Operation Gambit trials of the early ’90s, Robert Cooley, as a primary source for the news that Daniel Frawley says he gave $400,000 in cash to Tony Rezko, who then passed it on to Barack Obama.

In case you missed Cooley’s story, James Peterson, writing for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism, noted that “[i]n the mid-1980’s, Chicago Outfit Lawyer Robert Cooley voluntarily went undercover for the FBI as part of an investigation called Operation Gambat. Cooley wore a wire on, among others, [Alderman Ed] Burke’s good friend and made-man, Alderman Fred Roti. The Chief Judge of Cook County’s Chancery Court and an Assistant Senate Majority Leader of the Illinois State Senate were also targeted. Cooley’s work eventually led to the only judge in U.S. history being convicted of fixing a murder trial.”
Cooley is a Chicago legend.

As the star witness for the prosecution back then, Cooley’s credibility was validated by 26 convictions. Now, Cooley is back on the Chicago scene along with news that leaves a number of current, and former, Chicagoans with some splainin’ to do. Among the short list are these persons of interest.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald: It requires what one well-known politician once called “the willing suspension of disbelief” to think that the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) was unaware of this allegation by Frawley. Did Fitzgerald’s staff investigate it? Or did this fall into the “Wired for Silence: Fitzgerald’s Rezko Watchers” arrangement, recently suggested in the Chicago Daily Observer, where three key moles close to Rezko never testified in Rezko’s trial, nor were any conversations they taped made public?

Chicago Sun-Times: A July 11, 2011 Times article stated that, “Details about Frawley’s cooperation with the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI and the Illinois attorney general’s office can be gleaned from a 65-page court deposition he gave seven months ago in a legal-malpractice lawsuit that he filed against his former longtime lawyer, George Weaver. In the lawsuit, Frawley accuses Weaver of having overbilled him and telling him to ‘withhold certain information from the government’ when he was cooperating with authorities.”

What “certain information?” Did the Sun-Times aggressively pursue an answer to that question, or merely “glean”?

That 65-page deposition was executed on December 1, 2010 — but hold that thought.

Attorney Daniel F. Konicek: He represented Frawley’s former lawyer, George Weaver, in the deposition. The Times highlighted the following exchange between Konicek and Frawley: “Later in the deposition, Weaver’s lawyer, Daniel F. Konicek, asks Frawley about what specific information Weaver is supposed to have told Frawley to withhold from federal authorities. ‘I’m assuming the information is about the payments made by Rezko to Obama, so we know we’re talking about the right conversation, right?’ Konicek asks Frawley. Frawley doesn’t answer. So Konicek presses him: ‘Am I correct it was about Obama being paid by Rezko?’ Frawley replies: ‘I’m not answering that question, based upon my attorney’s instructions.'”

Where did that question come from? Konicek? Weaver? Did Konicek expect Frawley to answer?

Makes you wonder: was the whole deposition a kabuki dance intended to send a message to the USAO, and others, that Frawley knows some things, and might tell them to the world if he gets jammed up by the feds?

Back to Patrick Fitzgerald: Not two months after the December 2010 deposition, Frawley was hit with a bank fraud charge that was past the statute of limitations. Coincidence?

Or was it payback for filing the Weaver lawsuit, and a warning to Frawley that he’d better keep his mouth shut about the $400,000…and who knows what else? (Like maybe something about Companion Security?)”

“Chicago Big Media: Why did it take an obscure website to break this story when the Sun-Times has those three-musketeer journalists they call the WATCHDOGS?

And when the Trib has equally dogged sleuths like John Kass and John Chase?

Did either paper have knowledge concerning what Illinois Pay To Play reported and decide to sit on the information?

Thanks to the legendary Bob Cooley, yet again, some current and former Chicagoans got some ‘splainin’ to do. But, what we’ll most likely hear instead is the sound of crickets.”
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/some_splainin_to_do_in_chicago.html#ixzz20Aeedyxi

Patrick Fitzgerald.