“As we’ve said many times before, we don’t endorse or allow the decisions of state government to be based on campaign contributions,” Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said.
That’s the standard response to every new bombshell allegation that Gov. Rod Blagojevich traded jobs, contracts and appointments for campaign contributions. And it was issued again yesterday.
But, as I reminded subscribers this morning, Blagojevich has defied all credibility by forcefully denying that he is “Public Official A,” including right up to this very minute…
[The spokesperson said that] based on the descriptions arising from the case, the governor is not Public Official A.
Since that statement has already proved to be false, nothing else should be believed.
It’s their own fault.
* On to the coverage…
A former top official in Gov. Blagojevich’s administration said Tuesday the governor gave him a $127,000-a-year state job in exchange for pouring cash into Blagojevich’s campaign fund, including tens of thousands of dollars out of his own pocket.
That bombshell from Ali Ata came as the onetime director of the Illinois Finance Authority pleaded guilty in a deal in which prosecutors plan to have him testify in the ongoing corruption trial of former Blagojevich fund-raiser Tony Rezko.
* Remember that some of these alleged bribes were handed over during the 2002 campaign, when gubernatorial candidate Rod Blagojevich was claiming he was a reformer who would sweep out the corruption in state government…
The plea deal says that just before the governor took office claiming the mantle of reform, Blagojevich met with Ata at Rezko’s office, accepted a $25,000 check and then started talking about the Lemont businessman getting a high-level state job.
The following year, Blagojevich again thanked Ata at a Navy Pier fundraiser for another $25,000 donation, the court records show.
“During this conversation, Public Official A told defendant that he had been a good supporter, indicated that Public Official A was aware that the defendant had made another substantial donation to Public Official A’s campaign and told the defendant that Public Official A understood that the defendant would be joining Public Official A’s administration,” it said.
“Just before the governor took office,” is actually early September, according to campaign finance documents. That was the height of the season, when Blagojevich was hammering away at the Republican culture of corruption.
Ata, Ali
6719 Stonewall
Downers Grove, IL 60516
Occupation: Marketing
Employer: Nalco Chemical
$25,000.00
9/4/2002
Individual Contribution
Friends of Blagojevich
* Here’s a somewhat overlooked item from Ata’s plea agreement…
Beginning in or around mid-2003 and continuing through 2004, the defendant provided large sums of cash to Rezko in response to persistent and urgent pressure from Rezko to do so. The defendant provided Rezko with tens of thousands of dollars in cash on four or five occasions during 2003 and 2004, including while he was the Executive Director of the IFA. In total, the defendant provided Rezko with approximately $125,000 in cash during this period, which monies he had withdrawn from a family food distribution business that he was then operating.
This is explained by various news reports as…
Ata withdrew $125,000 from a family business and paid it to Rezko to keep his job.
You gotta wonder were that $125K went. Did Rezko keep it all for himself or did he pass some of it along?
* There’s also this from the plea agreement…
[Ata] intentionally concealed the fact that in 2003 he had provided to Rezko, at Rezko’s insistence, a portion of his partnership interest in a real estate venture, in exchange for Rezko’s use of his influence in state government to reverse a state agency’s decision to terminate a lease agreement relating to
Ata was plucked clean.
* Here’s a tidbit from yesterday’s Rezko trial, which I’ll put in context in a bit…
[Steve Loren, former attorney for the Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois] recalled once sharing a ride home with Levine, who has also pleaded guilty, and asking Levine who Pekin would split his fee with. He said Levine told him it was to go to Ald. Dick Mell, the governor’s father-in-law.
“I said: ‘How can these people be so stupid?’ ” Loren said, explaining it was an obvious conflict for Mell to get consulting money off a state deal.
According to prosecutors, the deal with Mell never went through, and the money instead went to Rezko associate Joseph Aramanda.
* Ata had contributed $5,000 to Dick Mell’s campaign funds in earlier days, but Mell denies knowing anything about the deal.
According to Ata’s plea agreement, he and “Individual D” formed a real estate company together, Addison Venture LLC. “Individual D” then allegedly helped falsify documents so that Ata could avoid paying all the taxes owed on a quick sale of a Chicago property.
“Individual D” has previously been identified as Joseph Aramanda. Aramanda contributed $10K to Blagojevich’s campaign fund in 2002.
These guys were thick as thieves, perhaps literally.
* And now Ata is prepared to go the distance for the G…
Ata’s lawyer, Thomas McQueen, said Ata would do whatever the government asked of him, including offering court testimony. He may get that chance sooner rather than later, as a prosecutor at Rezko’s corruption trial said Ata could be called as a witness.
This isn’t the beginning of the end. That started a while ago. But you can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.
* By the way, I uploaded this video in 2006. It shows Tony Rezko escorting Gov. Blagojevich through a crowd. But is that Ata as well? Here’s his pic from the Sun-Times…
And here’s the video…
