The criminal complaint against Blagojevich is here. Here’s a highlight:
Defendants ROD BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS, together with others, offered to, and threatened to withhold from, the Tribune Company substantial state financial assistance in connection with Wrigley Field, which assistance ROD BLAGOJEVICH believed to be worth at least $100 million to the Tribune Company, for the private purpose of inducing the controlling shareholder of the Tribune Company to fire members of the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper owned by the Tribune Company, who were responsible for editorials critical of ROD BLAGOJEVICH.
In other words, Blago wanted certain members of the editorial board fired and he threatened to withhold state funds that would have gone to the Tribune unless they fired the writers who had been saying all those nasty things about him. Lovely.
