From the people of the great state of Louisiana, I'd like to personally thank the politicians in Illinois who are working hard to replace Louisiana as the state having the most corrupt politicians...

I understand the displeasure shown toward Gov Blag but to me the bigger question is why did they stop the investigation when they did?

What exactly has the gov. done wrong? I know he offered to sell a senate seat and that is dispicable but did he sell it? What can they get him for legally?

I'm not sure. Anyone?

:0

Oh, soliciting a bribe comes to mind.

Perhaps to stop the bigger mess that would likely to have occured in trying to unravel an appointment if Blagjojevich had actually been paid. Or perhaps it was something else. Only the U.S. Attorney can answer that question. He may be able to dodge the question for now, but hopefully not forever.

Even if they can't convict, his days of political corruption are over. Perhaps that was the main objective.

This has been a long time coming. The folks in Southern Illinois are (privately) rejoicing.

I sure hope this isn't the reason. Wouldn't you want to find out who else is corrupt by letting the situation/crime follow through? There was no danger to anyone.

I wonder if that is true, I'm not familiar enough with Illinois voters to know if they love him or not, and if just the arrest will get him removed from office. There have been a number of public office holders in recent years who have been re-elected while under scrutiny or indictment.

One other thought as to why they maybe arrested him now...there have been a couple of high profile indictments in Louisiana this week, and one of the reasons the DA said so many were being issued is that the current grand jury expires this week, and a new one will not be sworn in until January. If they didn't act with the sitting grand jury, the prosecutors would have to start again with a new one. I guess the same thing could be happening in Illinois...

All of this gets me to thinking about PEP monitoring in a bank's BSA program.

The technical definition of a PEP excludes domestic politicians, but I am wondering if that will change.

So are the folks in IL west of Chi-town.

the prosecutor (Fitzgerald)is the same guy in the Plame case, and even though he knew who leaked the Plame name, he held open the investigation for a very long time - wonder why?

what's different here?

I think it's pretty legit to say that it would be a bad situation if we were stuck with a Senator who had been appointed as a result of corruption.

The Senate can refuse to seat the appointment.

If so, hopefully only for PEPs in Illinois, New Jersey and Louisiana.

I'm beginning to believe that BO is the one. With all this going on around him, plus Blag endorsing him and him endorsing Blag, BO being a state senator then a US senator and he didn't know any of this was going on!

What a man. We cannot lose with him sitting in the high place.

WOW (which spells MOM upside down)!

I have been pushing my clients for sometime now to include domestic PEPs as part of their overall def of PEPs. After all, they woul dfall under the definition of Senior Foreign Political Figure in other nations. Consider this Gov. Blogojovich, former Gov. Spitzer of NY, and the Congressman indicted for terrorist financing back in February. Banks would be wise to apply the same EDD to the domestic ones IMO.

take it to the business threads

I understand where you're coming from, but it's something that is easy to say, but quite difficult for larger banks to implement. If you don't have the tools and resources to do it right, then you probably shouldn't do it at all.

However, it's good to know who your higher profile domestic government officials are in case you every have to file a SAR.

The latest rumor for the aborted investigation seems to be that the Chicago Tribune was going to spill the beans, so the Feds made their move.

Read Article @ wsj.com