ArchPundit

Ouch:

BLAGOJEVICH.  During the call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s wife can be heard in the
background telling  ROD BLAGOJEVICH to tell Deputy Governor A “to hold up that
fucking Cubs shit. . . fuck them.”  ROD BLAGOJEVICH asked Deputy Governor A what
he thinks of his wife’s idea.  Deputy Governor A stated that there is a part of what ROD
BLAGOJEVICH’s wife said that he “agree[s] with.”    Deputy Governor A told ROD
BLAGOJEVICH that Tribune Owner will say that he does not have anything to do with the
editorials, “but I would tell him, look, if you want to get your Cubs thing done get rid of this
Tribune.”  Later, ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s wife got on the phone and, during the continuing
discussion of the critical Tribune editorials, stated that Tribune Owner can “just fire” the
writers because Tribune Owner owns the Tribune.  ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s wife stated that

if Tribune Owner’s papers were hurting his business, Tribune Owner would do something
about the editorial  board.  ROD BLAGOJEVICH then got back on the phone.  ROD
BLAGOJEVICH told Deputy Governor A to put together the articles in the Tribune that are
on the  topic  of  removing  ROD BLAGOJEVICH  from office  and  they  will  then have
someone, like JOHN HARRIS, go to Tribune Owner and say, “We’ve got some decisions
to make  now.”  ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that “someone should say, ‘get rid of those
people.’”  ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that he thinks that they should put this all together and
then have HARRIS or somebody go talk to the Tribune owners and say, “Look, we’ve got
decisions to make now. . . moving this stuff forward (believed to be a reference to the IFA
helping with the Cubs sale) . . . someone’s gotta go to [Tribune Owner], we want to see him

. . it’s a political fuckin’ operation in there.”  Deputy Governor A  agreed and said that
HARRIS needs to be “sensitive” about how he does it.  ROD BLAGOJEVICH said there is
nothing sensitive about how you do  it and that it’s “straight forward” and you say “we’re
doing this stuff for you, we believe this is right for Illinois [and] this is a big deal to [Tribune
Owner] financially” but what ROD BLAGOJEVICH is doing to help Tribune Owner is the
same  type  of  action  that  the  Tribune  is  saying  should  be  the  basis for ROD
BLAGOJEVICH’s impeachment.  ROD BLAGOJEVICH said Tribune Owner should be told
“maybe we can’t do this now.  Fire those fuckers.”  Deputy Governor A suggested that ROD
BLAGOJEVICH say, “I’m not sure that we can do this anymore because we’ve been getting
a ton of these editorials that say, look, we’re going around the legislature, we gotta stop and
this is something the legislature hasn’t approved. We don’t want to go around the legislature
anymore.”  ROD BLAGOJEVICH agreed and said that he wants HARRIS to go in and make

that case,  “not  me.”  Deputy Governor A agreed and said that he likes it.  ROD
BLAGOJEVICH asked Deputy Governor A to put the list of Tribune articles together.