BARACK OBAMA'S camp said yesterday there was "no inappropriate contact" with the governor accused of trying to sell the president-elect's old Senate seat in an attempt to end the corruption scandal overshadowing the transition.
Joe Biden, the vice-president-elect, speaking hours before the release of an internal review, said no Obama aides had haggled with Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich over the Senate appointment. "There has been no inappropriate contact between any member of the Obama staff or transition team with Blagojevich," Mr Biden told reporters in Washington.
The disclosure from the Obama team came two weeks after the FBI arrested Mr Blagojevich, and said it had wiretaps of the governor trying to leverage his authority to appoint a replacement for Mr Obama into campaign contributions and lucrative jobs for himself and his wife.
The prosecution described Mr Blagojevich's efforts, which unfolded in a series of secretly recorded conversations with members of the Obama camp, contenders for the Senate, and his own aides, as a "political corruption crime spree".
The revelations were a distraction from the presidential transition in which Barack Obama has set fresh standards both for his speed in assembling his cabinet, and the generally positive response to his choices.
Mr Obama had told his staff to review all contacts with Mr Blagojevich and his staff. He said last week he had been forced to hold off the release of the report until yesterday at the request of the government prosecutor. The president-elect was not expected to comment yesterday.
Despite Mr Obama's promises of a "thorough and comprehensive" review of his team's contacts with the governor, yesterday's report was expected to leave some questions unanswered.
The report is not thought to include transcripts of conversations between the two camps.
Obama's transition team is known to have had some contacts with Mr Blagojevich, who has the sole authority under Illinois law to appoint Mr Obama's replacement. The governor has, so far, rejected calls to step down.
However, Mr Obama has maintained that none of the contacts stepped across the line into bargaining with Blagojevich.
The incoming Obama administration is nearing agreement with congressional Democrats on a huge emergency spending Bill intended to jolt the weak US economy and create three million jobs over two years, vice-president-elect Joe Biden said yesterday.
Asked whether an agreement on the shape of a massive economic stimulus Bill would be reached by Christmas, Mr Biden said: "I think we're getting awful close to that." But he refused to divulge how much the measure would cost taxpayers. In recent days, some government sources have talked about moving a Bill through Congress next month with a price tag in the range of $675 billion to $775 billion.
Others have speculated on a possibly even larger overall expenditure to pay for road and bridge rebuilding, investments in mass transit systems, middle-class tax cuts and expanded aid for states and the poor.
Reacting to the worsening economy, which the government yesterday said shrank by an annual rate of 0.5 per cent in the third quarter, Mr Biden noted that the incoming administration has had to raise its job-creation goals over the next two years. "We don't think it's going to require any significantly larger increase in investment to do that."
In upbeat comments about the outlook for the economic stimulus legislation Congress will consider when it convenes on January 6th, he said: "It's clear that we're all on the same page, including our Republican colleagues" on the need for a "substantial" Bill to create jobs. "We're all getting very close to an overall number and we're getting close to the specific kinds of investment."
Mr Obama's chief White House economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, told reporters that without action, "we will almost certainly face the worst economic downturn since the second World War". - ( Guardianservice/Reuters)