Like everyone else, we’ve spent the morning pouring over the scintillating federal complaint [PDF] against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested this morning, along with his close aide John Harris, on charges of attempting to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder, and attempting to use his office to influence the Chicago Tribune’s Editorial Board. Read all 78 pages if you have the time, but here are a couple crucial passages:

Defendants ROD BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS, together with others, attempted to use ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s authority to appoint a United States Senator for the purpose of obtaining personal benefits for ROD BLAGOJEVICH, including, among other things, appointment as Secretary of Health & Human Services in the President-elect’s administration, and alternatively, a lucrative job which they schemed to induce a union to provide to ROD BLAGOJEVICH in exchange for appointing as senator an individual whom ROD BLAGOJEVICH and JOHN HARRIS believed to be favored by union officials and their associates.

Surely Tom Daschle laughed out loud when he read that one.

This has to one of the best paragraphs in the whole thing, though:

On November 11, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH talked with JOHN HARRIS about the Senate seat. ROD BLAGOJEVICH suggested starting a 501(c)(4) organization (a non-profit organization that may engage in political activity and lobbying) and getting “his (believed to be the President-elect’s) friend Warren Buffett or some of those guys to help us on something like that.” HARRIS asked, “what, for you?” ROD BLAGOJEVICH replied, “yeah.” Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that if he appoints Senate Candidate 4 to the Senate seat and, thereafter, it appears that ROD BLAGOJEVICH might get impeached, he could “count on [Senate Candidate 4], if things got hot, to give [the Senate seat] up and let me parachute over there.” HARRIS said, “you can count on [Senate Candidate 4] to do that.” Later in the conversation, ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.”

There’s something so perfect about the U.S. Senate being described as the ideal place in which a governor fleeing impeachment proceedings could take cover.

For the latest Blago roundups, head over to Chicagoist.