WMR's White House press sources have revealed that President Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is conducting a virtual political pogrom within the administration and the Democratic caucus in Congress. WMR has learned that the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program, once known as STELLAR WIND but changed after the classified code name was leaked to the media, is being used by Emanuel to force administration officials and Democrats in Congress to "toe the line" in their support of Obama's policies, including health care. the surge in Afghanistan, and the bail out of Wall Street.
From STELLAR WIND's successor, Emanuel and his cohorts have collected political intelligence that is either damaging or potentially embarrassing to Democratic office holders. One such member of Congress who has faced the consequences of warrantless wiretapping is House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan. The indictment of Conyers's wife, former Detroit City Council member Monica Conyers, who was convicted of accepting a cash bribe in 2007 in return for awarding a contract to Synagro Technologies, a Houston firm. Mrs. Conyers's sentencing has been postponed by US Judge Avern Cohn, a former president of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, until March 10 and the threat of a long prison sentence for the House Judiciary Chairman's wife has been communicated by Emanuel to Conyers if he continues his public criticisms of Obama.
Others who have been threatened with exposure of damaging information obtained from illegal NSA wiretaps include House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha. Emanuel has let it be known that members of Congress who sway away from the party line will "end up like Blagojevich." WMR has learned from Chicago sources that Emanuel and the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald conspired to leak STELLAR WIND wiretaps to the media even before Fitzgerald could convince a federal grand jury to indict the later-impeached Illinois governor.
Emanuel and Fitzgerald decided to try Blagojevich in the media and the court of public opinion before Blagojevich could expose Emanuel's backroom deal to have White House adviser Valerie Jarrett appointed to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat. Jarrett was hoping to use the Senate seat to help steer the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago. Jarrett and her real estate friends stood to make billions of dollars from the sale of public lands to build Olympic venues. WMR has also learned that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Jr. was originally opposed to the Olympics in Chicago but was pressured into it by Emanuel, Jarrett, and Michael Scott, the late Chicago School Board President whose body, last November, was found floating in the Chicago River with a gunshot wound. Although Scott's death was ruled a suicide, WMR has learned from Chicago sources that Scott was eliminated because he posed a threat to Jarrett, Emanuel, and Jarrett's friend Michelle Obama.
The constant threats of exposure by Emanuel of personal information obtained from private communications has led Democrats like Senators Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, as well as Colorado Democratic Governor Bill Ritter, to abandon their re-election bids. Our White House sources report that some Democrats were "directly threatened and some were not, but a threat was implied."
WMR has also learned of a schism that has opened up between Obama's political team of Emanuel, Jarrett, David Axelrod, and White House pollsters and focus group specialists who meet at the White House every Wednesday and the national security team of National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The national security team is convinced that the political team is only focused on the 2012 re-election campaign and not on pressing national security issues. Brawls have reportedly broken out between the two groups with Emanuel looking for ways to threaten Jones, Gates, and Clinton with retaliation if their criticisms of the political team continues.
The schism has resulted in a whispering campaign being started that Emanuel's time within the White House is finite. The Washington Post's Sally Quinn recently wrote that Emanuel may be leaving the White House to run for mayor of Chicago. The only part of that rumor which may be true is that the long knives are out for Emanuel by Democrats who see him as threatening the Democrats' chances of holding the Senate in this year's election. Since Mayor Daley shows no signs of declining a re-election bid and still being miffed that Emanuel was largely behind the decision not to appoint his brother William Daley as ambassador to China, Mayor Daley's relations with Emanuel are already strained.
