Obama to release Blagojevich report

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans to reveal today his staff’s conversations with the Illinois governor, accused of trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat, transition officials said Monday.

“We have a report,” said Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. “It’s been ready for release for a week. We’ve held off at the request of the U.S. attorney’s office and that continues to be the case, though we expect to be able to release the report shortly.”

Obama had promised to release this week the review he ordered of contacts between his aides and Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich’s office about appointing Obama’s Senate successor. The president-elect is on vacation in Hawaii, but his office will go ahead with the release, transition officials said.

Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat. Obama has said his internal review will show that his staff had no “inappropriate” discussions with the governor or his staff about the seat.

Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel contacted Blagojevich’s office about the appointment, according to a source close to the governor who requested anonymity because the person is not authorized to speak on the matter.

Blagojevich believed Emanuel, a Chicago-area congressman, was advocating Obama’s friend Valerie Jarrett for the Senate seat so he would not have to compete with her for Obama’s attention in the White House, the source said. It wasn’t known why the governor believed this, the source said, or whether Emanuel had spoken to Blagojevich, his chief of staff, or both.

It’s also not known if any of those discussions are included in tapes that investigators began making of Blagojevich’s conversations in October. A federal complaint charging the governor with seeking cash and favors for Obama’s vacant Senate seat doesn’t cite conversations with Emanuel or others on the transition staff.

An official familiar with Obama’s internal review said the president-elect’s team wrote its report without having access to transcripts of the FBI’s taped conversations. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the review publicly.

Since Blagojevich’s arrest Dec. 9, Obama has made few public remarks about the federal allegations that the governor wanted something in return to fill the Senate seat.

Aides say Obama has no plans to make a public statement on his internal report while in Hawaii. The president-elect had been withholding the report in deference to prosecutors who are interviewing witnesses in the Illinois public corruption case.

U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald in Chicago said when announcing the charges that Obama was not implicated in the case, and sources have said Emanuel is not a target of prosecutors.

Emanuel has refused to comment on his recent interaction with Blagojevich and his staff. Emanuel succeeded Blagojevich in his House seat in 2003, when Blagojevich became governor. Emanuel also served as an informal campaign advisor to the governor, and the two have a mutual friend who has become a key player in the criminal investigation.

In addition to the charges related to Obama’s Senate seat, Blagojevich is accused of accepting campaign contributions in exchange for state contracts and appointments, and bullying Chicago Tribune owners to fire editorial writers before he would commit state help in selling Wrigley Field, owned by the Tribune Co., the paper’s parent company, which also owns the Los Angeles Times. John Harris, Blagojevich’s chief of staff, is also charged in the case; he has resigned.

An FBI affidavit included in the federal complaint characterizes and quotes conversations between Blagojevich and others about selecting a successor to Obama’s Senate seat. But only a few minutes of the many hours of taped conversations are referenced in the court filing.

The governor at times considered exchanging Obama’s Senate seat for a presidential appointment, a job for his wife, campaign contributions and donations to a nonprofit he hoped to create, according to the complaint.

Blagojevich expressed frustration in one conversation taped by the FBI that Obama and his advisors weren’t “willing to give me anything except appreciation,” the affidavit states.