Obama Report: No Ties to Blago Scandal

Barack Obama's camp pronounced itself clean as a whistle today with regard to the Rod Blagojevich scandal, NBC reports. The president-elect’s team released an internal report saying that no one on the staff, including Obama himself, had any inappropriate contact with the Illinois governor as he considered appointments to fill Obama’s Senate seat. Federal investigators interviewed Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and adviser Valerie Jarrett, the report notes.

Emanuel—Obama's incoming chief of staff—had two phone conversations with Blagojevich and four more with the governor's chief of staff to press the president-elect's favorites, but such discussions were "predictable" with no hint of impropriety, the report says. "We are satisfied there was nothing inappropriate that took place here, either in terms of conversations or communications or contacts, between transition officials and the governor's office," said incoming White House attorney Greg Craig. (More Rod Blagojevich stories.)