Big Drama and Surprises on Illinois: Over By Dere

With the season finale of Illinois: Over By Dere just a few episodes away, there sure have been a slew of revelations, surprises and new adventures making this the best show on television!

Blagojevich attorneys want to subpoena Obama!

The old character who left the show for the spin-off of Illinois: Over By Dere for his own program, The Left Wing, the President is now the key to proving former governor’s innocence, lawyers suggest in court filing!

Just weeks before the start of his federal corruption trial, ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich sought Thursday to tie his credibility to that of long departed lead character President Barack Obama by asking that the leader of the free world be compelled to testify for the defense.

The court filing by the ex-governor's attorneys attempted to protect sensitive details by blacking out references to sealed investigative records. But it became an instant Internet sensation thanks to a computer glitch that enabled people to view the entire document — a mix of new allegations and old details that combined to create fresh intrigue over charges Blagojevich sought to sell the Senate seat vacated by Obama when he was elected in 2008.

Stringing together tidbits from closely held FBI interviews and secretly taped phone conversations, Blagojevich's lawyers suggested there is more to the story of the Senate pick than either federal prosecutors or the White House have acknowledged. And they argued that only Blagojevich and Obama know the details that could prove the former governor's innocence.

Quoting from a sealed prosecution memo, the defense team aired a previously undisclosed allegation that convicted influence peddler and main story stooge Antoin "Tony" Rezko told investigators he tried to buy Obama's favor with illegal campaign contributions. Rezko, a top fundraiser for Obama and Blagojevich, is cooperating in the case against the former governor.

The defense filing seeks to have the president rebut Rezko's claims and in the process discredit him.

Obama has repeatedly said Rezko has never asked him to do anything improper and he has never done so. White House spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday: "We aren't going to comment on an ongoing criminal investigation."

Never camera-shy despite his legal peril, Blagojevich has frequently suggested to the media that he might seek testimony from Obama and top White House aides from Chicago! It'll be a cross over to rival Law and Order!

And, after Sun was reunited with Jin (finally) she was able to speak English again. Most likely because Jin was her constant in both the alternate and island timelines. It should be noted that the timelines are running parallel, with a four year gap.

Meanwhile, the defense filing represents a ratcheting up of the pretrial chess game just a day after U.S. District Judge James Zagel admonished Blagojevich to quit grandstanding and said he would not allow the defense to play all 500 hours of government wiretaps for jurors. Zagel summoned lawyers in the case to an unscheduled closed-door meeting after the full content of the defense filing hit the Internet.

Since Blagojevich's arrest in December 2008, Obama has insisted that he and top aides were never part of any deals for the Senate seat and were unaware that Blagojevich may have been scheming to use his appointment power to enrich himself.

There is nothing in the filing to indicate otherwise. But the cherry-picked nature of how the defense document was assembled and the suggestive nature of the allegations invited immediate claims from Obama critics that the filing raised doubts about the president's veracity. Looks like he's going to be coming back to the show that made him famous?

Blagojevich's attorneys said Rezko has informed federal authorities that he "engaged in election law violations by personally contributing a large sum of cash to the campaign of a public official" and used a lobbyist to offer to hold a fundraiser for the official in exchange for "favorable" action. The attorneys indicated the timing of these alleged actions was around 1999 when Obama was launching an eventually unsuccessful challenge to U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush. Or, for those of you new to the show - he was bought off.

"The defense has a good faith belief that this public official is Barack Obama," the filing declared, while also noting that Obama has denied any knowledge of or participation in such actions.

Sources have said Rezko has not been prepped by prosecutors to testify in the case, and that the government has not made a decision on calling him. The defense filing makes it clear that the Blagojevich camp is confident Rezko will take the stand as "one of the government's main witnesses."

Prosecutors have accused Blagojevich of working with Rezko and other associates to run the state as a criminal racket even before the ex-governor was sworn into office in 2003. In addition to the charges involving the Senate seat, Blagojevich has been accused of trading official actions for kickbacks that would benefit his campaign fund, his friends, his wife and himself, even going so far as to allegedly shake down a children's hospital. Which, fans will always remember as one of his greatest moments on the show... even better than his impeachment.

It is the charges swirling around the Senate pick that have led the defense team to attempt to draw Obama into the case. In December 2008, shortly after Blagojevich's arrest but prior to the presidential inauguration, Obama said he had "never spoken to the governor on this subject. I'm confident that no representatives of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat."

But Blagojevich's defense team contends that Obama's public statements contradict those of other potential prosecution witnesses, including Valerie Jarrett, a White House official who briefly was considered the favored Senate replacement for her longtime friend Obama.

Oooops!

The filing cites FBI interviews with labor officials, including one who said he spoke to Obama on the eve of his Nov. 4, 2008, election and said the soon-to-be-president believed that Jarrett "would be a good senator for the people of Illinois." The union official said he told Obama he would convey that message to Blagojevich.

Obama ordered an internal investigation after the Blagojevich arrest, and Jarrett told the lawyer leading that probe that she met with Tom Balanoff, head of the powerful Service Employees International Union in Illinois, three days after the election. She said Balanoff told her he had spoken to Blagojevich about picking her as senator.

In the same conversation, Jarrett said, Balanoff also told her Blagojevich had raised the possibility of his being named as secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama Cabinet, a possibility that Balanoff and Jarrett agreed would never happen.

The filing alleges that the day after the election, a supporter of Obama suggested to Jarrett she reach out to then-Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy, according to an interview Jarrett had with the FBI shortly after the former governor's arrest.

The Obama supporter, who is not identified in the filing, allegedly mentioned "fundraising" (hehee) help for Blagojevich in exchange for naming Jarrett to the Senate vacancy during a phone call to Blagojevich's home that was secretly recorded by government agents the day before the election.

Jarrett withdrew her name from consideration eight days after the election, and prosecutors contend that Blagojevich then went on to entertain an array of other possible Senate contenders he could name in return for financial gain. My guess is that Jarrett 'discovered' the wire tap once her benefactor did. And that man is the man with the submarine - Widmore.

One week before Blagojevich's arrest, Obama and the Illinois governor attended a national meeting of governors in Philadelphia. The filing notes that the two spoke there and that two top aides to Blagojevich later discussed that conversation in a wiretapped phone call. But there's no indication in the filing that the Senate vacancy was discussed by Obama and Blagojevich when they met.

The other major intersection between Obama and Blagojevich involves Rezko, who in 2008 was convicted of corruption for his role in rigging regulatory decisions in the Blagojevich administration.

At one point during that trial, Rezko complained that federal authorities were pressuring him to tell them "wrong" things about Blagojevich and Obama. "I have never been a party to any wrongdoing that involved the governor or the senator," Rezko wrote to a judge.

The defense contends that Rezko has told the government that in 1999, when Obama was an Illinois state senator, the two had "certain conversations about gaming legislation and administration" which Obama has publicly denied having. That was the year that the legislature passed a major expansion of casino gambling, and Rezko reportedly was angling for casino-related business.

Obama voted against the legislation and spoke against it during debates.

In its filing, the defense said it realized that asking a sitting president to testify would be difficult because of his demanding schedule and security concerns. To make it easier, Blagojevich's lawyers offered to question Obama on videotape and play the deposition in court.

To comply with a judicial order to protect sensitive information, Blagojevich's lawyers had blacked out references to confidential evidence handed over by the prosecution.... but then there was a computer glitch that allowed everyone to see it.

Oooops!

Fire up that pop corn, this show just went from great to legendary!

By Jeff Coen, Rick Pearson and Bob Secter, Tribune reporters John Chase, David Heinzmann, Stacy St. Clair and Serena Maria Daniels contributed to this report.