Blago Subpoenas Giannoulias

The news that Alexi Giannoulias has been subpoenaed by Rod Blagojevich's defense team is a gift to the Mark Kirk campaign.

Rod Blagojevich's defense team has subpoenaed Alexi Giannoulias to testify in the ongoing Blagojevich corruption trial. If Mark Kirk's team can't score points on this, Kirk just needs to find a new profession.

Giannoulias’ team spent the weekend scrambling (an activity that they have gotten quite good at) to explain why Giannoulias’ name surfaced several times during the trial last week. During testimony regarding Blagojevich's plan to get something in return for appointing Obama confidante and current senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett to replace Obama as senator, the jury heard taped conversations in which Giannoulias’ name was mentioned. In a November, 2008 conversation that was secretly taped between Blagojevich and his former Chief of Staff, John Harris, Harris is heard saying “Alexi called me.” Harris goes on to explain that Giannoulias “wants to meet with me a few minutes this afternoon. He says it's . . . I said what's it about? He says the (Senate) seat 'but not for me, for someone else.'”

In an interview with Chicago Sun-Times writer Lynn Sweet, Giannoulias confirmed that he had in fact been subpoenaed by Blago's defense team. He also explained that he had called Harris to support Valerie Jarrett's nomination to the Senate. Giannoulias told Sweet that “Despite what the Republicans are trying to say. I am really not a part of this circus. I think you know I have always thought very highly of Valerie," Giannoulias said. After the election, Giannoulias told me he "reached out to Harris to give him my thoughts and at a certain point, Tom Balance reached out to me to get in touch with Valerie; he did not know how to get a hold of her. I put the two together in the meeting.”

According to Giannoulias, that meeting was eventually held in the office of one of the president's close friends, John Rogers, and Giannoulias confirmed that he did attend the meeting. Giannoulias claims that Jarrett wasn't lobbying hard for the seat, but did want to hear what Mr. Balanoff, a union official whom Blagojevich believed was an Obama confidante, had to say.

All of this may be true, but even if it is as innocent as this, the fact that Alexi Giannoulias has been subpoenaed by Blago's defense team, presumably because the defense thinks Giannoulias' testimony might help lead to Blago's acquittal, is a gift to the Kirk camp. Corruption charges are hard to pin, and Blago just might get off; but he has also come to embody everything wrong with Chicago politics as usual. Whatever his role, Giannoulias is now a part of the trial.