Redactions Revealed: The Six Secrets You Need to Know From the Obama Subpoena Request, page 1

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Topic started on 27-4-2010 @ 06:42 AM by JacKatMtn

Former Illinois Governor Blagojevich's attorney's want to subpoena President Obama to testify as a corroborating witness for the former Governor's defense. The trial is slated to begin in June.

The motion was released and was supposed to be heavily redacted, but an error was made and the details of the entire motion are now public knowledge.

Some interesting details are revealed..

www.nbcchicago.com

Former governor Rod Blagojevich's defense team asked Thursday to issue a trial subpoena to the President of the United States of America.
The motion, intended to be heavily redacted, was improperly edited -- the full document was easily viewable if the text is copied and pasted to another document (an error first revealed on Capitol Fax).
Below, the six revelations the redacted portions were meant to conceal.

What are the odds of the President having to appear in this case?

Additional article on this story can be found here:
www.thenewamerican.com

reply posted on 27-4-2010 @ 07:14 AM by Grey Magic

What are the odds of the President having to appear in this case?

Zero percent. *

* Unless teleprompters get allowed in court and the whole thing is scripted.

reply posted on 27-4-2010 @ 07:46 AM by lernmore

Originally posted by JacKatMtn
What are the odds of the President having to appear in this case?

Far, far less than someone getting paid off or silenced to make it go away.

Can you imagine the rush someone got when they pasted the blacked out text and it showed up?

For the record, I think it's absurd that anyone thinks a Chicago politician wouldn't get his paws involved in a replacement for his seat.

I also found it hilarious when Obama's "team" issued the report where they found no wrong doing. They're all liars.

What do you suppose ol' Barry and Rod were talking about on Dec 1st?

reply posted on 27-4-2010 @ 10:17 AM by JacKatMtn

reply to post by lernmore

I agree that it's no surprise that The President elect would be concerned/involved in assisting the Governor in selecting the Senate seat that he was vacating.

Nothing out of the norm here, Blago's position is that the President has information vital to the defense of his case and the released motion provides a pretty good case to allow such, maybe on of the more accomplished members familiar with the legalese could better relate as to the power of the defense's case in this matter.

snippet from the document. line item 20

President Barack Obama has direct knowledge of the Senate seat allegation.
President Obama’s testimony is relevant to three fundamental issues of that
allegation. First, President Obama contradicts the testimony of an important
government witness. Second, President Obama’s testimony is relevant to the
necessary element of intent of the defendant. Third, President Obama is the only one
who can say if emissaries were sent on his behalf, who those emissaries were, and
what, if anything, those emissaries were instructed to do on his behalf. All of these
issues are relevant and necessary for the defense of Rod Blagojevich.

It also includes case history, and also that a taped deposition would be acceptable as long as a few procedural points are followed.

While it most likely will not mean a Presidential trip to court in June, it is possible that he could be compelled to testify via other means?

Another article detailing an emergency hearing about the error in redaction.

cbs2chicago.com

The judge presiding over the corruption case against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich summoned attorneys to his courtroom Thursday evening after information in the case that was supposed to remain under seal was released to the public.

Blagojevich's attorneys had filed a motion Thursday asking to have President Obama give testimony for the ex-governor's corruption trial.

The filing contained several paragraphs that had been blacked out -- or redacted -- because the information had been sealed by court order. However, in the electronic version of the motion, computer users have been able to copy and paste the blacked out portions into a separate document and read the passages as an unredacted version.

[edit on 4/27/2010 by JacKatMtn]

reply posted on 27-4-2010 @ 07:56 PM by JacKatMtn

Another somewhat related interview of the former Governor by Greta Van Susteren. She tries to squeeze some details out of Blago, but he wouldn't crack

blogs.suntimes.com

... VAN SUSTEREN: You mentioned President Obama. You have filed notice to the court that would you like to subpoena him. And you have enumerated a number of reasons. What is it that you think Senator Obama -- President Obama, then-Senate Obama, could offer you at trial on June 3rd that would be helpful to your case?

BLAGOJEVICH: I think President Obama can help prove my innocence.

VAN SUSTEREN: How?

BLAGOJEVICH: Let me say this, before anybody says I'm interested in bringing everybody down with me. That's completely not the case. I've done nothing wrong.

What I'm interested in is for the whole truth to come out that neither did I do anything wrong, President Obama didn't do anything wrong, the senators that I talked to didn't do anything wrong either. And so they should come into court and tell the truth as they know it. Swear on the holy bible as I'm looking forward to do --

VAN SUSTEREN: I got that, but what is it that -- the judge is going to say how is President Obama going to help your case? He is going to ask that flat out to your lawyer. Tell me how.

BLAGOJEVICH: Again, a lot of evidence and information that I'm prohibited by court order because it is under seal to tell you. So there's relevance connected to that.

VAN SUSTEREN: In the pleading your lawyers talked about a conversation in December '08, a conversation. President Obama called you?

BLAGOJEVICH: Again, I can't -- because of the court order and me following the law I can't comment specifically on those telephone conversations. My lawyers filed motions in court. They redacted, as far as I understand, they redacted the substance of those. There was a computer glitch apparently that made some of this stuff unwittingly public -- the media found it.

VAN SUSTEREN: You see that still as part of the seal?

BLAGOJEVICH: It is still part of seal...