It was the Chicago Tribune that forced Fitzgerald's hand

The Wall Street Journal reports that it was a December 5 story in the Chicago Tribune that reported that an associate of Blagojevich was cooperating with Patrick Fitzgerald's office. Just the day before they'd taped the conversation in which Blagojevich discussed payments that had been offered on behalf of Senate Candidate 5, now known to be Jesse Jackson Jr. The meeting to finalize those plans was supposed to take the next day, but that was the day that the Tribune story came out and Blagojevich pulled the plug on the deal. If the Tribune had waited to publish its story, Jackson might have been caught up in the deal and Fitzgerald would have had definite evidence of a crime being committed rather than just a conspiracy to commit a crime. Both men should be thankful to the Chicago Tribune for their "timely" story.