Who is Dario Amodei, the Anthropic CEO pushing independent AI oversight?
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes artificial intelligence (AI) companies need the help of independent outside watchdogs to safeguard their developing technologies. But one of the organizations he believes could do the job, METR, is closely connected to the same AI safety community that has ties to Anthropic’s start. Many of its leading figures have ties to a movement called “effective altruism (EA)” — the belief that evidence and careful reasoning can help maximize the good that companies and people can do with their time and resources. METR describes itself as an AI safety testing laboratory. ANTHROPIC CEO LIKENS AI FIGHT WITH CHINA TO COLD WAR, SEEKS ‘DISARMAMENT NEGOTIATIONS’ “METR evaluates frontier AI models to help companies and wider society understand AI capabilities and what risks they pose,” its website reads. Although its website and public materials don’t make mention of effective altruism, its founders have used it as a framing for their work. Beth Barnes, METR’s founder and CEO, worked at OpenAI alongside Amodei as the company developed early versions of ChatGPT. At an Effective Altruism Global event, she laid out her vision for how to maintain AI safety. “Our overall plan is — it sort of seems like it would be good if it was someone’s job to look at models and decide if they’re going to kill us, think through the ways that that might happen, anticipate them, figure out what the early warnings would be, that sort of thing,” Barnes said. Similarly, Paul Christiano, who led the research around OpenAI’s efforts to ensure its models followed acceptable strategies for delivering requested results, later founded the first iteration of METR. He too has framed parts of his approach to AI safety as a form of effective altruism. “My suspicion is that it is more important for the ‘effective altruism’ movement to have a fundamentally good product and to generally have our act together than for it to grow more rapidly,” Christiano said in a 2014 article. Figures like Barnes and Christiano provide informal links to Anthropic — a company that received funding from effective altruism’s largest supporters when it emerged as a way of thinking among tech moguls. Barnes and Christiano also both worked on evaluations involving Anthropic models, providing safety checks for Anthropic’s flagship AI, Claude. Most notably, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, led Anthropic’s 2022 Series B financing round before his company collapsed and he was convicted in a multibillion-dollar fraud case. Before FTX’s downfall, Bankman-Fried was one of the highest-profile proponents of the Effective Altruism movement, publicly saying it shaped his approach to earning and giving money. ANTHROPIC’S MORAL COMPASS ARCHITECT SUGGESTED AI OVERCORRECTION COULD ADDRESS HISTORICAL INJUSTICES RUTHLESS EXCLUSIVE: PENTAGON CTO REVEALS REASONING FOR ANTHROPIC REMOVAL Similarly, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn led Anthropic’s 2021 Series A financing round. Tallinn has been one of the Effective Altruism movement’s most prominent supporters, speaking at Effective Altruism Global conferences, helping found the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the Future of Life Institute, and donating more than $1 million to the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, an organization focused on AI safety and alignment research. Amodei isn’t calling for the rest of the industry’s leaders to submit to the thinking of METR, specifically. But in a recent letter, he used them as an example of the guidance he believes the industry needs. Amodei proposed a plan: accountability could come through “embedded evaluators” that would supervise AI development companies. “Each frontier AI company commits to giving ongoing, employee-like access to a team of embedded third-party evaluators (such as METR) whose role it is to verify adherence to safety practices and commitments, report incidents and help assess the alignment of not just completed AI models but training pipelines and processes. “Regardless of what commitments we make, the public deserves to know what is going on. We are still the ones choosing what to include and omit. Embedded evaluators will change this dynamic,” Amodei wrote. Few figures in the AI space are as well known for their efforts on AI safety as Amodei. Amodei originally studied biophysics, earning a Ph.D. from Princeton in 2011. He would go on to become a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford University School of Medicine. After his studies, Amodei worked for a series of technology companies like Baidu, Google Brain, and, in 2016, OpenAI — the company that developed ChatGPT .During his time at Baidu, Amodei worked to develop speech recognition through machine learning, a kind of pattern identification. And at Google, he began working on safety while helping develop the company’s neural-net research, computer models that loosely mimics brain function. At OpenAI, Amodei continued those themes, eventually becoming vice president of research as the company developed its ChatGPT 2 and ChatGPT 3 models. In its early stages, the GPTs were asked to fill in blanks to sentences like: “Today, I went to the ______ and bought some milk and eggs,” and “I knew it was going to rain, but I forgot to take my ______.” But just as the company began to discover that it could amplify the power of its models through larger and larger language models, Amodei left OpenAI in 2020. He believed the company wasn’t doing enough to install guardrails on what he saw as a budding reality of the technology he had long theorized about. He also didn’t know if he could trust the company to set aside its financial interests. “When you feel that you can’t trust someone, when you feel that their values are not what they say they are, when you feel that they’re not honest, when you feel that they’re not in it for the reasons that they say, when you see disturbing patterns of behavior, dishonesty, that makes it very hard to continue to work with a company, to continue to trust the company,” Amodei said in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this year. Since leaving OpenAI, Amodei helped start Anthropic, a company that has made AI safety a
Dem’s data center attack in critical Senate race hits snag when money trail surfaces: ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde’
FIRST ON FOX: Former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is targeting Republican Sen. Jon Husted over Ohio’s growing data center industry in a new campaign ad that features a facility owned by Google — whose corporate PAC and lobbyists have contributed thousands of dollars to Brown’s campaigns. The Sept. 4 ad features an Ohioan blaming Husted for spearheading “the push to bring data centers to Ohio” and linking their expansion to “higher electric bills.” The facility featured in the ad, which opened in Lancaster in 2023, is owned by Google. Campaign finance records reviewed by Fox News Digital show Google’s corporate PAC contributed $20,000 to Brown over his political career. Brown also received thousands of dollars from individuals who lobby for Google, including two whose firms have worked on permitting, grid reliability and energy affordability issues. WATCH: GOP SENATOR UNLOADS ON ‘CREATURE OF WASHINGTON’ CHALLENGER IN CRITICAL SENATE SHOWDOWN “Apparently Google is terrible enough to put in a campaign attack ad, but perfectly acceptable when the political contributions are coming in,” Mehek Cooke, a GOP strategist and attorney in Ohio, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “That is the contradiction Brown needs to answer. If Google’s Lancaster investment is so bad for Ohio, why was Google political money acceptable to Sherrod Brown?” Among the contributors are Google lobbyist Lisa Kountoupes, who donated $3,500 in March, and Google lobbyist Michael D. Smith, who donated a total of $10,200 to Brown since 2017, according to Federal Election Commission records. The contributions were made to Friends of Sherrod Brown, Brown’s principal campaign committee. Kountoupes’s firm, Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid, was hired by Google in December to lobby on “issues related to permitting reform” tied to the company’s data center needs, Politico previously reported. Smith’s firm, Cornerstone Government Affairs, reported lobbying for Google on “issues related to permitting reform for grid reliability and energy affordability,” according to federal lobbying filings. FEC records show Brown also received a combined $6,000 over the past decade from three additional Google lobbyists. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Lauren Chou, a spokeswoman for Brown’s campaign, highlighted Brown’s opposition to Ohio’s data center expansion, saying Husted “led the charge,” but did not address Brown’s past campaign contributions. “Husted is a ‘chief reason’ Ohio has 226 data centers and is ‘the face of data centers’ in Ohio,” Chou wrote. “Ohioans shouldn’t be forced to subsidize these costs and Ohioans – not Jon Husted and his billionaire friends – should get to decide if data centers are built in their community.” Cooke accused Brown of acting like his “Google relationship in Washington does not count,” calling it “Jekyll-and-Hyde politics.” FOX NEWS POLL: ECONOMIC ANXIETY AND CANDIDATE CONCERNS DEFINE OHIO SENATE RACE “For nearly five decades, Brown has sold himself as the plaid-shirt, working-class populist,” she said. “He lost in 2024, and now he is back running the same playbook: say one thing to Ohioans while his Washington record tells a very different story.” Brown, who is seeking to return to the U.S. Senate in the high-stakes race against Husted, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 before losing his reelection bid in 2024 to Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. But this isn’t the first time Brown’s comeback campaign has faced questions over conflicting positions. FOX NEWS POLL: DEMOCRATIC UNITY, REPUBLICAN CROSSOVERS SHAPE OHIO SENATE RACE In 2015, Brown celebrated the construction of an Amazon data center in central Ohio, saying in a press release the new facility “is great news for New Albany and central Ohio.” Despite his public praise, Brown has become an outspoken critic of Ohio’s growing number of data centers, a defining issue in Ohio politics ahead of the midterms. President Donald Trump has pushed to expand the facilities, warning that communities that block them would “end up being backwards and poor.” But Cooke said this about more than one local data center. “America is in a global race for AI, computing capacity and energy infrastructure,” she said. “China is not slowing down because American politicians discovered that attacking data centers makes a convenient campaign commercial.” In a statement to Fox News Digital, Husted campaign spokesperson Amy Natoce said that Brown failed Ohio families during his 32 years in Washington and is “once again resorting to lies instead of facing his abysmal record head-on. “ “The House overwhelmingly passed Sen. Husted’s bipartisan legislation requiring data center companies to pay for the power they use, but Senate Democrats blocked it,” Natoce said. “Sherrod Brown and his friends would rather play politics and stick Ohio families with higher electric bills than pass a commonsense solution. It’s despicable.”
Kirk family has powerful evidence — but Utah law could derail wrongful death case: experts
A Utah government immunity law could upend the Kirk family’s efforts to bring a wrongful death lawsuit against Utah Valley University over alleged security failures surrounding Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Attorneys for Kirk’s family filed a notice of intent to sue on Sept. 9, one day before the anniversary of his death. The filing alleges a series of security failures by the university, including declining additional police officers, failing to adequately address concerns from Kirk’s security team and not having an adequate security plan in place for his visit. But legal experts say the Kirks face an uphill legal battle because Utah law grants government entities — including their officers and employees — broad immunity from lawsuits arising from a lengthy list of circumstances, including the performance or failure to perform discretionary functions and claims involving assault, battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and civil rights violations. “Unfortunately, Charlie Kirk’s family is going to have a very difficult time prevailing in a wrongful death case in Utah,” Tenielle Brown, a University of Utah law professor, told Fox News Digital. “And that’s because Utah’s government immunity statute is phrased in such a way that says even if the state and UVU were reckless, they retain immunity in cases that arise out of a battery, and that would include gunshot wounds.” JUDGE IN ACCUSED ASSASSIN TYLER ROBINSON’S CASE EXPLAINS WHY DEATH PENALTY REMAINS ON TABLE IN WRITTEN ORDER Kirk, 31, co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and grew the conservative youth organization into a major force on high school and college campuses nationwide. He was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem on Sept. 10, 2025. Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Fox News Digital that wrongful death claims against the government are already difficult for plaintiffs to win because government entities generally enjoy broad immunity from lawsuits stemming from assaults or batteries committed by third parties. “I’ve handled lack of security cases, including lack of security cases against the government,” Rahmani told Fox News Digital. “They are tough because you are trying to hold the police or city, county or state responsible for someone else’s criminal actions.” But Rahmani suggested the Kirk family’s strongest evidence could be a message from UVU Police Chief Jeffrey Long acknowledging concerns about rooftop access to the Sorenson Center, a building located “pretty close” to where Kirk was scheduled to speak. The Sorenson Center sits directly west of the Losee Center, where prosecutors say Tyler Robinson fired the shot that killed Kirk. In response to the security concerns, Long messaged Kirk’s team, “I got you covered.” TYLER ROBINSON HEARING ENDS WITHOUT RULING AS EVIDENCE DISMANTLES CHARLIE KIRK CONSPIRACY CLAIMS “That means they’re gonna argue that they assume the responsibility to make sure Charlie Kirk was safe, and they failed to do so,” Rahmani said of the Kirk family. “In cases where you have the government taking on a duty, that tends to be better than simply arguing that the government has a duty to protect everyone because we know that murders happen all the time, and you can’t sue the government just because someone is killed.” But Brown said Utah law can shield government officials from lawsuits even when they fail to perform their job functions. “There have been a number of cases where the plaintiffs and the family of the victims have sued for either wrongful death or battery,” Brown told Fox News Digital. “And in some cases, the government did behave recklessly, and they could show carelessness and recklessness and the plaintiffs were not able to prevail because it arose out of a battery. And that’s unusual. Most states don’t have that broad of a statute.” Brown pointed to the case of Mika Scott, a 19-year-old Utah Valley University student who sued Utah County and the Utah County Sheriff’s Office after Shawn Leonard, a prisoner with a violent criminal record who had escaped from a work-release program, raped her in 2010. “They were supposed to screen inmates to make sure that they weren’t violent,” Brown told Fox News Digital. “And then when they went out in the community on the job sites, they were supposed to make sure that they were policing the boundaries so that these inmates couldn’t escape and in a really terrible situation.” “And she could have shown carelessness and maybe even recklessness, but because of the government immunity statute and because this claim arose out of a battery, she was not able to prevail against the state,” Brown continued. CHARLIE KIRK SUPPORTERS RETURN TO SITE OF ASSASSINATION 1 YEAR LATER: ‘WE ARE STILL STANDING’ The Utah Supreme Court addressed the statute’s language in its 2005 decision in Wagner v. Utah, which held that civil battery does not require an intent to cause physical or psychological injury. “The court said, it may not be prudent for the state to continue to retain immunity here,” Brown told Fox News Digital. ” And they’re kind of signaling to the legislature that the legislature should probably change the statute to allow for suits in cases like Charlie Kirk’s.” “But the state has not revised the statute and so it still says very clearly that you can’t sue the state if the claim arises out of a battery,” Brown continued. Brown said state workers who are not elected cannot be held accountable at the ballot box for failing to do their jobs. “The president of UVU, the campus police, those people are not elected, and so if you were to say sovereign immunity is all about letting people decide whether they’re state actors or careless at the ballot box, then you vote them out of office,” Brown said. “That doesn’t work,” Brown continued. “That argument doesn’t for the UVU president because nobody can vote them of office, nobody is having any political check on the campus police.” Astrid Tuminez, who served as the school’s president at the time of Kirk’s assassination, stepped down from her position in May 2026
Mamata Banerjee moves Supreme Court against ECI over TMC name and symbol freeze
Former WB CM Mamata Banerjee moves Supreme Court challenging ECI decision to bar her faction from using the original TMC name and Flowers and Grass symbol. ECI froze the symbol amid tussle and allotted new names ahead of Oct 6 Bengal bypolls.
Texas Supreme Court rules baby delivered by surrogate can leave Texas
The decision clears the way for the 1-month-old’s biological parents to relocate him from Dallas to Los Angeles, where the couple lives, to seek treatment there. Their surrogate wants him in Texas.
Feds reimburse Texas for $7.5 billion in border spending, ending delay
The grant program was created by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which became law in July 2025.
Federal judge pauses Texas Republicans’ bid to close primaries
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk said in his ruling that he expects Republicans to succeed in restricting primaries to voters registered with the party during the next legislative session.
Why the House let out early is a matter of debate after Johnson says chamber has ‘done its work’
It’s a matter of debate as to why House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., sent the House home a day early this week. This is in addition to the House lopping off two additional weeks from its schedule later this month and into early October. “We’re going to modify the House schedule by a day. And let me explain to you why. The House has done its work,” Johnson said as House members fled Capitol Hill early Wednesday night. “House Republicans are going now back to our districts. We’re going to make the case to the American people on what we have delivered on their behalf.” The House isn’t scheduled to reconvene until Nov. 9, just after the midterms. But outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., believes there’s a different reason Johnson cut everyone loose early. The Kentucky Republican introduced eight articles of impeachment for Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth. Because Massie’s push for impeachment is “privileged,” the House had 48 hours max to consider the articles. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO MASSIE SAYING JOHNSON IS SENDING THE HOUSE HOME EARLY TO PREVENT HEGSETH IMPEACHMENT “I figured out why we canceled tomorrow,” Massie said. “Tomorrow would be the vote on impeaching Secretary of Defense Peter Bryan Hegseth. And it looks like that vote’s not going to happen.” A senior House Republican leadership source insisted to Fox last week that members would be on Capitol Hill “for a full week.” But, by Wednesday, the House had synced up with the Senate and passed the Russia sanctions bill. It OK’d legislation to protect consumers from high electricity and water bills associated with data centers, foisting the cost on tech companies. Yes, there were calls by bipartisan lawmakers that the House should remain in session to address intensifying concerns about AI. But the House was running out of floor traffic. Except for Massie’s measure to impeach Hegseth. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: HOUSE CONTROL COULD HINGE ON WHETHER THE OLD POLITICAL RULES STILL APPLY Now you can determine for yourself why Johnson dismissed lawmakers a day early — to say nothing of the plan for the House to cut town two weeks sooner than originally planned. But you can imagine what Massie thought. “Exactly what I predicted,” Massie said on the House floor. “Why did he just cut another day off the calendar?” I found Massie off the floor after he concluded his speech. “Do you think they adjourned the House because you have the votes on Hegseth?” yours truly asked. “Chad, they cut two weeks off of the calendar to keep me from getting to 218 votes on the Epstein discharge petition. And then we came into this week, and I introduced eight articles of impeachment against Peter Hegseth, and they have 48 hours to vote on that,” Massie replied. “He cut off the day tomorrow to avoid the vote.” Here are the parliamentary mechanics. The House was compelled to consider Massie’s impeachment articles if it met this past Thursday. Otherwise, the resolution covering the eight impeachment articles would expire. The 48-hour window associated with such privileged resolutions disappears. Sure. Massie could bring them up when the House next meets in November. But that is seven weeks from now. But let’s say the House met on Thursday and was forced to bring up Massie’s impeachment articles. Republicans would likely have offered “a motion to table.” This is an effort to kill Massie’s gambit. Thus, the vote would not have been on impeaching Hegseth, but whether or not to set aside Massie’s plan. If the House voted to table Massie’s articles of impeachment, the gig is up. It’s done. The House never even considered the actual impeachment resolutions. The vote was one step removed from a straight, up/down vote on actually impeaching Hegseth. But let’s say the motion to table was to fail? That means the House immediately skips to the articles of impeachment. The possibility suddenly exists that Hegseth could face eight impeachment votes even through there’s been no investigation. No committee hearings. No “process.” Nowhere does it say in the Constitution that Congress is required to wrestle with the usual parliamentary volutions to impeach someone. If a simple majority in the House votes to impeach you, you’re impeached. Nuff said. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: CONGRESS MEETS AI AS FEARS OF HUMAN EXTINCTION JOLT CAPITOL HILL This is why Republicans likely would have moved to table Massie’s impeachment articles. A vote to table inoculates members from having to take a challenging vote on the underlying issue. Keep in mind that there are a number of House Republicans who are aggravated with Hegseth and beside themselves about the war in Iran. This vote would have put them in an interesting position, especially since many if not all Democrats may have voted to impeach. So, I asked Massie the following about the motion to table. “That would have put (members) in a tough spot. Or, if they had to vote on that, would it have passed?” I asked. “A vote on a motion to table? He may not have survived that vote,” Massie declared. In other words, Massie believes the House could have defeated the motion to table. That would have triggered votes on actually impeaching Hegseth. And, from Massie’s standpoint, that’s why Johnson sent the House home. You might remember that there was a bipartisan effort last summer by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., to go around Johnson and deposit a measure on the floor, forcing release of the Epstein files. Johnson let the House out early for summer break then. Later, Johnson kept the House out of session for most of the 43-day government shutdown as the special effort to bring action on the resolution loomed. The House voted to reopen the government in mid-November. And one of the first things the House did after that? Voted 427-1 to require a release of the files. The lone nay vote against releasing the files? Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La. Even though there aren’t votes until early November, Massie is still a member
Vance calls midterms a referendum on ‘common sense versus pure unadulterated crazy’
Vice President JD Vance called out Democrats Friday, saying the midterms will be a referendum on “common sense versus pure unadulterated crazy.” While stumping in Iowa, Vance said Democrats are no longer “the party my grandparents grew up talking about.” Raised by a union steelworker, Vance said his father told him that “FDR’s Democrat party, that JFK’s Democrat party was the party of the workingman. THE ONE LINE FROM JD VANCE’S GOP KEYNOTE THAT REVEALS HIS VISION FOR AMERICA “This is not FDR’s party, as much as we might wish it was. It’s not JFK’s party. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not even Bill Clinton’s party.” Vance said today’s Democrats don’t believe the country needs to be “built upon” but “utterly transformed.” “In New York,” he said, some of the midterm candidates are calling for the “total eradication of Western civilization. Somebody running for Congress in New York — and I promise I’m not joking about this — said that July Fourth is actually about the liberation of Palestine and Puerto Rico.” To loud boos, Vance said, “You could almost laugh about” the idea of Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence and thinking about the liberation of Palestine and Puerto Rico. MORNING GLORY: FIVE SENATE RACES SHOW WHY DEMOCRATS MAY REGRET THEIR PRIMARY CHOICES “But, unfortunately, it’s not funny because those people are dead serious, and this election is a referendum on common sense versus pure unadulterated crazy. Let’s send the crazy packing and get them out of Washington, D.C.” Vance said to cheers. Vance also claimed some Democratic candidates are “out-and-out lunatics” who have “lost their ever-loving minds.” “These are the ones who will tell you that our history is evil, and this country needs to be bulldozed and started over from the beginning,” he continued. ‘JESUS WAS A RADICAL’: PROGRESSIVES INVOKE CHRIST TO SELL LEFT-WING AGENDA ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL But he said other Democrat candidates are “smart enough to realize that the country hasn’t lost its mind, and, so, they try to be just a little bit more subtle.” Calling out Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hamilton of Kansas, Vance claimed Hamilton gave off a “kind of ‘gee whiz, I’m a nice pastor’ vibe,” but he’s a man that tells his congregation not about the gospel of Jesus Christ, but that they need to repent for their White privilege.” Recent polls have shown a tightening race between Hamilton and GOP incumbent Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall. During the rally, Vance threw his support behind Iowa Republicans, including gubernatorial nominee Zach Lane, Rep. Ashley Hinson and congressional candidate Chris McGowan.
Unsealed FBI interviews reveal Obama, Emanuel’s discussions about Blagojevich Senate seat deal
Anyone who has a conversation with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is likely to hear his claim that he was never going to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by former President Barack Obama in 2008, insisting his innocence in the high-profile case that led to him serving nearly eight years in federal prison. Blagojevich has repeated for years that he was closing in on a deal to appoint Lisa Madigan to the U.S. Senate. Hers is a name that has largely dropped out of the public arena. At the time of the scandal, Madigan served as Illinois attorney general. More relevant to this case, she is the daughter of the very powerful and entrenched then-Speaker of the Illinois House Mike Madigan. RAHM EMANUEL WARNS DSA AGENDA DOESN’T PLAY WELL OUTSIDE ‘UPPER WEST SIDE OF MANHATTAN’ The former speaker has since gone to prison for a separate corruption case. (Welcome to Illinois.) Blagojevich claims he would have appointed Lisa to the Senate in exchange for the father supporting his healthcare package and budget. Shortly after the arrest of Gov. Blagojevich in December 2009, both President-elect Obama and his incoming chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, were interviewed by the FBI. Obama was interviewed Dec. 18, nine days after the governor was arrested. Emanuel was interviewed on the 20th. The records of those interviews were kept out of both criminal trials and away from the public, until now. Fox News has obtained the partially redacted FBI FD-302s of those interviews. The Obama interview notes, “Obama was asked whether he was aware of Emanuel having a conversation with the Blagojevich administration regarding Lisa Madigan being considered for the Senate seat in exchange for legislation being passed. “Emanuel would have been aware that Lisa Madigan was an acceptable candidate to Obama. Emanuel had an open line of conversation with the Blagojevich administration.” The Emanuel interview notes that, on Dec. 8, 2008, “(David) Axelrod and Emanuel went to see (U.S. Senator Dick) Durbin, D-Ill. In this meeting, they all agreed that Lisa Madigan would be a good candidate.” “As a result of this conversation, Emanuel contacted (Blagojevich Chief of staff, John) Harris and told him the merits of appointing Lisa Madigan as Senator.” The next morning, Dec. 9, 2009, just after 6 a.m., Blagojevich was arrested at his home in Chicago. RAHM EMANUEL WARNS ‘BERNIE BROS’ COULD SINK DEMOCRATS BY SADDLING MODERATES WITH SOCIALIST AGENDA Then-U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald said, “Governor Blagojevich was arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree. We acted to stop that crime spree.” “That just proves the Madigan deal was very much front and center. It was something I was about to do,” Blagojevich said in light of the newly unsealed information. “There never was a crime spree that Mr. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney, said he was stopping to justify arresting a sitting governor in his home.” Other interesting notes from the interviews: President Obama initially wanted Valerie Jarrett to succeed him in the Senate. But he reversed his thinking early in the process, deciding “that he would like Jarrett to join him at the White House as a senior advisor.” However, “Emanuel was still interested in Jarrett taking the Senate seat rather than working in the White House.” Because, according to the Emanuel interview, “the fact that she is the president-elect’s best friend, having her on the White House staff would be awkward.” “Rahm’s a crafty, political, crafty, cunning and very effective political operator,” Blagojevich chimed in. “He was interested in being closer to the king.” Eventually, according to the Emanuel interview, Obama became resolute. “Obama told Emanuel he made a decision that Jarrett was going to the White House, and he was not going to reconsider this decision.” After that, a gaggle of familiar names entered the ring for consideration: Tammy Duckworth, and Reps. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., who also went to prison for a separate case. MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL WILL HAUNT FLANAGAN IN HIGH-STAKES SENATE RACE, TOP HOUSE REPUBLICAN WARNS Then Obama, busy with establishing a new administration, stated, “He did not want to put his thumb on the scale.” Still, he dispatched Emanuel to communicate with the governor’s office that “Obama was interested in someone who he thought would be a good senator for the people of Illinois and who could also hold the seat in the 2010 election.” Blagojevich ended up appointing Roland Burris to Obama’s vacated seat. Burris did not run for re-election. Republican Mark Kirk won the seat in 2010 and was defeated by Tammy Duckworth in 2016. Blagojevich served 7 years, 11 months in prison until President Trump commuted his sentence in 2020. Blagojevich received a full pardon in 2025. Fox News reached out to both former President Obama and Rahm Emanuel. They did not respond.