When big-time Chicago lawyer Joe Cari - former holder of several high-level posts for the Democratic National Committee and onetime national finance chairman of Gore for President - pled guilty to one count of extortion in 2005, the doors blew open on the federal investigation that eventually led to the indictment of Rod Blagojevich, labeled then simply as Public Official A.
Cari later testified against Tony Rekzo; while on the stand he said he expects a two-and-a-half year prison sentence.
But in the meantime, Cari is blogging.
Cari's blog doesn't mention his legal problems on his About page, though he doesn't shy away from attacking pols he sees as disingenuous in his posts. For example:
"Our tax dollars have also compensated public officials such as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for their inspired leadership which certainly has been part of leading our country to this financial mess," Cari writes.
"Yes, the same leaders who take sweetheart personal deals or campaign contributions and now want accountability from financial services firms. Of course we want that accountability, but isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?"
In the same post, Cari writes "I thought responsibility started when Obama took office and had directed his transition team to examine how the TARP money should be allocated. They obviously missed the boat on the AIG bonus issue."
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"Oil revenues that our own Vice President Dick 'Darth Vader' Cheney promised would be used to pay for the war, was a conduit for many American and Iraqi ”entrepreneurs” to make themselves millionaires in the great American system of graft and corruption (a game brought to its highest form in the great State of Illinois, of which I am painfully aware)," Cari writes in another post.(Obama) asks that great man of few and simple words, Vice President Joe Biden to figure out how to help the middle class, " Cari writes later in that post. "Vice President Biden was asked to head a task force to find out that the middle class is in deep trouble, is almost on the verge of extinction, and needs the help that’s already in the stimulus package. Once again, the American taxpayers’ dollars at work."
Wow. Before his legal problems, Cari was rumored to be set for a high-level job with Biden's presidential campaign.
Cari is also now on Twitter, though he only has two followers so far.
This being Illinois, it's not unfair to wonder if Cari hopes the judge will start to follow him and take his new reform impulses into account come sentencing time. Either way, he's sure to gain a few more followers in the weeks to come once word spreads among the politicos that Cari has taken to the blogosphere.
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter. He profiled Joe Cari and his legal case for Chicago magazine.
