Feds: Jackson Aware of Offer

A supporter of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. told the Democratic congressman in 2008 that he would raise $1 million in return for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich naming Jackson to the U.S. Senate, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.
The allegation, made on a busy day at Blagojevich’s federal corruption trial, was the first time authorities publicly suggested Jackson was aware of efforts by his allies to swap campaign cash for his appointment to the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
Prosecutors also played a rapid-fire sequence of secret wiretap recordings that show Blagojevich reluctantly warming to Jackson as a Senate pick after first profanely ripping him as a non-starter.
Jackson has not been charged and has long denied knowledge or involvement of the alleged scheme to buy the Senate seat, which surfaced almost as soon as Blagojevich’s arrest on Dec. 9, 2008. Days later, the South Side congressman read a statement declaring: “I never sent a message or an emissary to the governor to make an offer, plead my case or propose a deal about a U.S. Senate seat, period.”
Jackson did not return phone calls for comment Wednesday.

Read more: (Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, “Feds: Jackson Aware of Offer,” Chicago Tribune, 07/08/10)