Ray Long and Ashley Rueff, Chicago Tribune
- Even as he sought to allay concerns about how Gov. Rod Blagojevich picked him for the U.S. Senate, Roland Burris disclosed Thursday he relayed his interest in the job to one of the governor’s lobbyist fundraising friends whose activities are under federal scrutiny.
The former Illinois attorney general said he raised the idea of going to Washington if Barack Obama was elected president in a July or September conversation with Lon Monk, the Democratic governor’s former chief of staff. Burris said he mentioned it as he was asking Monk to steer him lobbying clients.
The revelation didn’t seem to hurt Burris—Illinois Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan predicted Burris would be the state’s next U.S. senator—but it served as another example of the intersection between Burris, Blagojevich and the governor’s inner circle. Burris is touting his clean record of public service as a reason the U.S. Senate should seat him despite Democratic leadership’s criticism that anyone Blagojevich picked would be tainted following the governor’s arrest last month on federal corruption charges.
