Rahm Emanuel still wearing two hats

Rahm Emanuel is calling the shots for what will soon be the Obama White House, but he hasn’t drawn a check from the presidential transition operation.
   
{mosads}Emanuel has been negotiating on Barack Obama’s behalf even before he was elected president, and his selection as presidential chief of staff was announced Nov. 7. But Emanuel remains a congressman from the 5th District of Illinois.
   
“He will remain on the House payroll until he resigns his seat,” said a spokeswoman in Emanuel’s congressional office. “The timing on that has not been decided.”
   
His role in the transition, though, comes under a magnifying glass Tuesday, as Obama is expected to release an accounting of the transition team’s contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D). The governor allegedly tried to sell Obama’s Senate seat.
   
The spotlight is on Emanuel, a veteran of Illinois politics who succeeded Blagojevich in the House. Speculation has abounded about Emanuel’s contacts with Blagojevich and aides, though the FBI’s account of the scheme appears to depict Emanuel as an obstacle to the “pay-to-play” scheme.

It’s probably of little concern to Emanuel, who made millions between in his time between the White House and Congress, where his government check comes from.

But Emanuel occupies a unique position as an elected official leaving for a staff job. While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and other elected officials picked for Cabinet posts legally cannot play a role their departments until they are confirmed, Emanuel is already on the job, though he’s also still a lawmaker.
   
On the day Barack Obama was chosen to be the 44th president of the United States, Emanuel was elected to a fourth term representing the 5th District of Illinois, getting 74 percent of the vote. He remains eligible to get sworn in on Jan. 6, 2009 like everyone else who triumphed in the 2008 elections.

Yet, he already gave his valedictory to the caucus on Nov. 18 (along with a $100,000 campaign contribution and a promise of $500,000 from Obama). And he hasn’t done much as a congressman since the election.

The last press release on his personal office website was put up two weeks before the election on Oct. 14. On his leadership site, the last press release was put up Oct. 7. House Democrats have already chosen his replacement as chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

He skipped the Nov. 19 vote on who should chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with all floor votes in the lame-duck session. His last vote was before the election on Oct. 3.

His top press secretary, Sarah Feinberg, has told reporters to contact her through the Obama transition, though there has not been any announcement that she’s joined Team Obama.

An aide from another leadership office says the understanding is that Emanuel has delayed resigning his House seat in order to allow his staff to look for jobs and keep getting salary and benefits. Emanuel’s decision to jump ship did come rather suddenly, and could have surprised some staffers who had been preparing to help Emanuel keep marching up the House leadership ladder.

Meanwhile, the silence from Obama and Emanuel on the Illinois scandal is starting to elicit headlines like “Senate-for-sale case threatens new chief of staff.” And Republicans, gleeful for a high-profile Democratic scandal, quickly spread the word, even if they don’t quite know what to make of Emanuel’s role, either.

Blagojevich aides have suggested that Emanuel was pushing Valerie Jarrett for the Senate seat not merely as a messenger from Obama, but to eliminate her as a rival in the White House. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the FBI captured 21 tape-recorded conversations between Blagojevich’s office and Emanuel.

Obama and Emanuel started firing back over the weekend when ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos reported leaked details of Obama’s upcoming report.

Stephanopoulos, who worked with Emanuel in the Clinton White House, did not disclose his source when he reported that Obama’s accounting will state that Emanuel had only one “pro forma” conversation with the Illinois governor about the Senate seat, and four phone calls with John Harris, the Blagojevich chief of staff who was also arrested.
   
Stephanopoulos reported that the conversation with the governor focused more on who would succeed Emanuel in the House seat they both held. And when Harris asked whether in return for picking Jarrett “all we get is appreciation, right?” Emanuel replied, “Right.”

According to the criminal complaint filed by prosecutors, Blagojevich later allegedly told Harris, “F— them.”