PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama has promised that questions concerning his staff’s contacts with Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich about filling the president-elect’s Senate seat will be answered when his transition team releases a report on the matter next week.
Speaking in Chicago yesterday after he announced two more cabinet appointments, Mr Obama said he was eager to make public the results of an internal investigation into the contacts.
“It’s a little bit frustrating,” Mr Obama said.
“There’s been a lot of speculation in the press that I would love to correct immediately. We are abiding by the request of the US attorney’s office. It’s not going to be that long. By next week, you guys will have the answers to all of your questions.”
Mr Blagojevich was arrested last week on bribery and mail fraud charges, including an allegation that he sought to trade Mr Obama’s senate seat for campaign contributions or jobs for himself and his wife.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported yesterday that, days after November’s election, the president-elect’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel privately urged Mr Blagojevich’s administration to appoint Mr Obama’s friend Valerie Jarrett to the senate seat.
Ms Jarrett subsequently took herself out of the running for the seat and was appointed to a senior role in Mr Obama’s White House.
The president-elect’s senior adviser David Axelrod defended Mr Emanuel, expressing confidence that the incoming White House chief of staff was not involved in any inappropriate deal-making with the governor.
“I’ve worked with him closely. He is someone who I think has enormous integrity and unparalleled skill. And I think we’re lucky to have him,” Mr Axelrod said.
“I have no concerns about Rahm. He is an enormous asset to us and will be an enormous asset to the country, as he has been in the congress.”
Mr Obama has named former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary and Colorado senator Ken Salazar as interior secretary. Mr Vilsack is the fourth former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination to be chosen for the cabinet, after vice-president-elect Joe Biden, incoming secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson, who has been appointed commerce secretary.
Mr Vilsack has drawn criticism from environmental activists over his support for subsidising ethanol but Mr Obama said the former governor’s experience of running an agricultural state gave him a valuable insight into the challenges American farmers face.
“Tom will . . . help ensure that rural America has a true partner in implementing the farm bill . . . and that Washington is looking out for everyone, from the small family farms that are feeding our communities to the large farms that are feeding the world,” the president-elect said.
Mr Salazar, who appeared at yesterday’s press conference wearing a cowboy hat and string tie, will lead a department that oversees oil and gas drilling on public lands and manages US parks and wildlife refuges.
“I will do all I can to help reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil,” Mr Salazar said. “I look forward to working directly with President-elect Obama . . . as we take the moon shot on energy independence.”