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Here’s an addendum to this week’s Hot Type. My main item concludes with a discussion of a Wall Street Journal story Sunday by Cam Simpson, a former Tribune reporter. Simpson’s thesis was that “Trib exclusive: Feds taped Blagojevich” on the paper’s front page December 5 forced the hand of the U.S. attorney because it alerted the governor to the fact the feds were listening to him and closing in. “Had the plot unfolded,” Simpson wrote, “[prosecutors] might have had an opportunity most feds can only dream of: A chance to catch the sale of a Senate seat on tape, including the sellers and the buyers.”
Another factor, Grant said, is that the FBI didn’t want to arrest Blagojevich on his birthday, December 10. They’d taken “a lot of grief” a couple of years ago for arresting Nicholas Blase, the mayor of Niles, on his 78th birthday, “and we didn’t want to develop a pattern where any politician under investigation would make sure they were out of town on their birthday.”
