Accused former governor wants to call Obama as witness

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers have asked a US federal judge to issue a subpoena for President Barack Obama to testify as a witness at his corruption trial.

Blagojevich said in court papers filed by defence attorney Sam Adam that Mr Obama would be able to resolve questions surrounding the government’s allegation that the former governor sought to sell or trade the seat left vacant following the president’s November 2008 election.

“President Barack Obama has direct knowledge of the Senate seat allegation,” Blagojevich’s 11-page motion filed with US District Judge James B. Zagel said.

There was no allegation in the court papers of any wrongdoing on Mr Obama’s part.

It would be extraordinary if a sitting president were subpoenaed to take the witness stand in a Chicago political corruption trial or any criminal trial. Mr Zagel has not indicated how he might respond to the unusual request.

The motion said there was a conflict between comments made by Mr Obama at a news conference and statements to US federal prosecutors made by a labour union president and a candidate for the seat.

“There are two conflicting stories and the defence has the right to admit evidence that contradicts the government’s claims,” the motion said.

Some portions of the motion were blacked out to conform to court-ordered secrecy.

But within hours of the filing, the public was briefly able to access portions of the material online.

In them, several witnesses were quoted as saying that a labour union official spoke of having a conversation with Mr Obama on November 3, 2008, in which Mr Obama expressed hope that Blagojevich would choose an unnamed Senate Candidate B - frequently identified as the president’s longtime friend, Valerie Jarrett, now a White House adviser.

The document quoted the unnamed labour union official as telling FBI agents and prosecutors that Mr Obama thought Senate Candidate B “would be a good senator for the people of Illinois and would be a candidate who could win re-election”.

Federal prosecutors immediately had the document pulled from the publicly available portion of the court’s docket, and Mr Zagel called an emergency meeting with prosecutors and Blagojevich attorney Sheldon Sorosky in his chambers.

The Chicago Tribune, which posted a link on its website, reported that “a computer glitch” allowed the access.

Mr Zagel has scheduled the trial to get under way on June 3.