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WASHINGTON — Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House leader of staff, spoke “one or brace” times with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and “on the eve four” times with the governor’s chief of staff but did not engage in unbecoming discussions about who should be appointed to Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, according to a report issued Tuesday by Obama’s staff.

The memorandum, released by e-mail as the president-elect continued his vacation in Hawaii, said the juxtaposition between the scandal-plagued, two-term Democratic governor and Obama’s staff was proper and limited.

“The accounts embrace no indication of out of keeping discussions with the Governor or anyone from his office about a ‘deal’ or a cud pro quo arrangement in which he would receive a personal benefit in return for any specific appointment to fill the interval of leisure,” said the report, written by incoming White House counsel Gregory Craig.

The report also revealed for the first time that officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office investigating the Blagojevich inflection interviewed Obama on Dec. 18 as part of their malefactor probe. Emanuel was interviewed Saturday, and longtime Obama friend and guide Valerie Jarrett was interviewed Friday.

The report did not expose that which information the three supposing to prosecutors, who have indicated Obama and his staff are not targets in the case. Obama aides said Jarrett and Emanuel retained attorneys to represent them during interviews with prosecutors and during the internal staff review.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has accused Blagojevich and the governor’s former chief of staff, John Harris, of conspiring to sell Obama’s seat to the highest bidder. The founded on complaint is based on hours of recordings of conversations involving Blagojevich and Harris.

One conversation described in Fitzgerald’s complaint hinted that the governor was frustrated through contacts with Obama or his partisan.

“Blagojevich aforesaid he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat,” the complaint states, referring to in any degree individual many believe to be Jarrett, and goes on to quote Blagojevich as saying: “But ‘they’re not disposed to give me anything except appreciation. (Expletive) them.’ “

The report helps explain the first part of that statement: In his seasonably conversations through the governor, Emanuel touted Jarrett as the best candidate, according to the Obama memo, before lore from Obama that he wanted to remain neutral on the subject.

“The President-elect believed it appropriate to provide the names of multiple candidates to be considered, along with others, who were qualified to gripe the seat and able to retain it in a future election,” Craig wrote.

But the report does not bring into actuality clear why Blagojevich stated that he purpose the Obama staff was “not determination to accord. me anything.” It states that none of Obama’s truncheon suspected the governor was seeking anything improper in exchange for the Senate house.

“No united in the Obama circle was aware of that which was going on in the chief magistrate’s office or the governor’s mind until the governor was arrested,” Craig said in a conference call after the report was released. “No one suspected that there was any effort to crack the circle.”

Days after Blagojevich was arrested, Obama said he had not talked to his home-state governor and promised to lay open his staff’sitting contacts after an internal review that he said would take a few days.

The president-elect later delayed the release of the inward investigation at Fitzgerald’s request.

The report confirmed leaked reports that Emanuel had repeated contact with the overseer’s office immediately in imitation of being named Obama’sitting chief of staff. But it asserted none of the contacts went beyond discussions of who might be considered for the Senate seat.

“Mr. Emanuel and the Governor did not discuss a cabinet position, 501c(4), a private sector relation during the term of the Governor or any other personal profit for the Governor,” Craig wrote in the report. The annunciate does not say whether Emanuel discussed campaign contributions, which courts do not mind a “material benefit.” A transition-team official before-mentioned such contributions were not discussed.

The report aforesaid that Emanuel was communicating to Harris, at Obama’s request, the the community Obama thought should be considered for the post, but that Obama directed him not to express a preference.

Emanuel offered six names as possible candidates after Jarrett withdrew hers to accept a job in the White House: Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Jesse Jackson Jr.; Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes; Illinois Veterans Affairs Secretary Tammy Duckworth, a experienced of the Iraq war; Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan; and Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson.

The report aforesaid Jarrett had a going by conversation with Blagojevich at a conference limit she otherwise had no contact with the governor’s office.

Jarrett did discuss the Senate seat through a union official, Tom Balanoff of the Service Employees International Union, the report said. During that conversation, Balanoff told her Blagojevich had raised the chance of centre of life appointed secretary of health and human services.

“Ms. Jarrett did not understand the conversation to suggest that the Governor wanted the cabinet place as a quid pro quo for selecting any especial candidate to be the President-Elect’s replacement,” the record said.

Craig wrote that Obama adviser David Axelrod did not possess any touch with the governor or his staff. The discharge said one Obama confidant who is not employed in the shifting effort had a abstract conversation about the subservient with a member of Blagojevich’s staff.

Emanuel has not commented about his contacts with Blagojevich. Obama did not make comments on the report’s contents.

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

U.S. attorney refuses

lawmakers’ request

CHICAGO — In a setback for pomp lawmakers seeking to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a federal plaintiff said Tuesday that he would not provide them by information about his criminal investigation of the governor.

The lawmakers had asked the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, towards guidance on in what manner the impeachment inquiry should proceed in light of the criminal case.

In rejoin, Fitzgerald wrote Tuesday that he had carefully considered his office’sitting legal obligations and the special sensitivities involved, concluding that “producing those items at this time could significantly compromise the ongoing malefactor investigation.”

— The New York Times