By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — As expected, the White House gave the nod on Monday to Andrew Traver, a 23-year-veteran of ATF, as the nominee to head the agency. Traver has headed the ATF Chicago field division since 2004. From 2001 to 2004, he served as an assistant special agent in charge of the…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The father and son legal team that represented chatty ex-Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich have asked a judge to release them as the lawyers in the case, the Associated Press reports. A hearing is set for Friday in downtown Chicago in preparation for the retrial for the for Blagojevich, who was convicted…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Since the beginning, Chicago Police chief Jody Weis, an ex-FBI agent, has been battling the perception of being an outsider in an agency that doesn’t take so kindly to such things. The latest attack on Weis came Wednesday when more than 300 off-duty Chicago cops stood outside police headquarters to protest…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com For a while, during the public corruption trial of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich in downtown Chicago, the only sure conviction appeared to involve defendant Douglas Belkin, a Wall Street Journal reporter. In July, the 42-year-old reporter was arrested while covering the trial of Blagojevich and his brother Robert, the Associated Press reported….
Ex-Gov on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Perhaps one of the more interesting asterisks surrounding the decision Thursday by prosecutors to drop charges against Robert Blagojevich was that his brother Rod, the very chatty, seldom-at-a-loss for words ex-governor, had not called to congratulate him hours after the announcement, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. “When…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The sequel to Rod Blagojevich’s first public corruption trial could be coming to a federal court room in downtown Chicago as early as January, the Chicago Tribune reported. The Trib reported that in a private meeting last week between U.S. District Judge James Zagel and lawyers, the judge said he was…
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By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com There’s no question it was a major embarrassment for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald when a Chicago jury on Tuesday convicted the over-chatty ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on only 1 of 24 counts — and that sole count did not even go to the meat of the case. But I have to…
