The Chicago Tribune Walks

A new document laying out the federal government's evidence against former Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-IL), reveals that no one from Tribune Company was ever even offered a deal.

Wiretaps in the case caught the governor's inner circle conspiring to make a deal that would have greased the skids for about $100 million in state financial assistance to the then-Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs in exchange for personnel changes to the Chicago Tribune's Blago-skeptic editorial board. But, after extensive investigation, United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald found that Blagojevich chief-of-staff John Harris never had any intention of approaching the Tribune Company about the deal. All those phone calls? Harris was just stringing his boss along, relaying discussions that he'd never had.