Chicago corruption not just politics, Jurors judges not buying that defense, Blagojevich  juror Maribel DeLeon, Obama corruption

“Why has Obama, since taking the White House, used Justice Department Attorneys, at taxpayer expense,  to avoid presenting a legitimate birth certificate and college records?”…Citizen Wells and millions of concerned Americans

“Why was Obama in constant contact with Tony Rezko in 2004 when Rezko was conspiring with William Cellini to use TRS, Teacher Retirement Fund, assets for political gain and personal enrichment?”…Citizen Wells

“Why did the Illinois Senate Health & Human Services Committee, with Obama as chairman, create and push Bill 1332, “Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act,” early in 2003, which reduced the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, just prior to rigging by Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich?”…Citizen Wells

“I believe I’m more pristine on Rezko than him.”…Rod Blagojevich

From the Chicago Tribune July 11, 2011.

“No, corruption isn’t ‘just politics’
Jurors and judges aren’t buying that defense mantra”

“June 27, 2011: Jurors convict Rod Blagojevich on 17 counts of public
corruption. In essence, those jurors reject the defrocked governor’s
suggestion that, during conversations recorded by the FBI, he was
engaging in routine politics rather than a self-serving crime spree.
The trial outcome leaves Blagojevich likely to serve many years in
federal prison.”

“During much of Patrick Fitzgerald’s decade as U.S. attorney in
Chicago, some Illinois pols have waged a plaintive whispering campaign
with journalists and anyone else who would listen:

Fitzgerald’s office is criminalizing politics! Public officials trade
favors! Always have, always will!

This self-exculpatory rationale for politicians’ illicit behavior has,
over time, become the defense of choice in Illinois public corruption
cases. The Blagojevich and Ryan trials, the federal convictions of
Ryan sidekick Scott Fawell and Mayor Richard M. Daley acolyte Robert
Sorich — defense attorneys in these and other prosecutions have tried
to aw-pshaw their way past the damning evidence by peddling versions
of a soothing mantra:

This defendant is guilty of nothing more than politics as usual. All
public officials help people who help them. This is just the game —
not the serious crimes these prosecutors would have you believe.

But the mantra isn’t working. Jurors and judges are having no trouble
distinguishing between genuine exercises in political activity and
blatant violations of federal laws. “I was one where I felt he was not
guilty on several counts,” juror Maribel DeLeon of West Dundee said
after helping to convict Blagojevich. “But, lo and behold, we would go
back through the tapes and there it was. I’d say, ‘Ah, Rod.’ It hurt
me. How could I say not guilty when the evidence was there?”

No agonizing there about whether Blagojevich was Mr. Just-Politics.

Fitzgerald, in comments after the verdicts, crisply synthesized what
DeLeon and 11 other jurors had just decided: “There is legitimate
politics. There are gray areas. Selling a Senate seat, shaking down a
children’s hospital and squeezing a person to give money before you
sign a bill that benefits them is not a gray area. It’s a crime.””

Read more:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-honest-20110711,0,7901238.story

Patrick Fitzgerald stated: “There is legitimate
politics. There are gray areas.”

Obama’s part in the rigging of the IL Health Planning Board, lying about his contact with Tony Rezko and the shady House and land puchase with Rezko are not gray either. Using US Justice Department attorneys to keep his records hidden is not looking too gray either.

Where is Patrick Fitzgerald?

Where is Tony Rezko?