A week into the scandal, this question's catching on: exactly how criminal was Rod Blagojevich's behavior? Or was it just tacky?

So Barack Obama's transition team finished its official report on the Blago scandal and it turns out that no one did anything wrong, hooray!

Barack Obama just tried to reintroduce us to Tom Daschle, his new Health and Human Services secretary, but the press just wants to talk about bad Governor Blagojevich. Question time!

Now that we know (or are told at least) that Rod Blagojevich's "Senate Candidate 5" is Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr, well, we have almost more questions than we did before. Why was he such a great bargaining chip against Obama in the (admittedly crazy) mind of Blago? Did Obama really not want Jackson to take his seat? Also why did Blago expect he'd get something "tangible up front" in exchange for a Jackson appointment? That last question seems to hinge on an unnamed "Individual D." Try to guess who we are wildly speculating that is!

Senate Candidate 5? It's Jesse Jackson, Jr.! Someone connected to the congressman apparently had ROD BLAGOJEVICH convinced that ROD BLAGOJEVICH would make a cool million dollars by appointing Jackson to Barack Obama's Senate seat, against the president-elect's wishes. Jackson says he was told he's "not a target of this investigation," and says he'll cooperate with the investigation. This makes two Obama allies caught seeming a bit corrupt in the Blagojevich filing!

"Illinois law is silent on whether a governor must leave office after he's arrested on corruption charges...." While that's hardly a shocking sentence to read, it does seem like it's come up often enough for Illinois lawmakers to have a plan in place. So. What happens now to Rod Blagojevich and the governorship and and Barack Obama's vacant senate seat? It's a hilarious, Chicago-style mess!

Three months ago, while Barack Obama was running for president and his rival John McCain kept kinda-sorta threatening to bring up corrupt Chicago politics, Obama called up his good friend in the Illinois State Senate, Emil Jones, Jr, and convinced him to change his mind on an important upcoming vote. The formerly doomed bill suddenly passed! Man, that Chicago machine. So dirty! Of course, it was the ethics bill. The one that forced Governor Blagojevich to get all his corruption in before it went into effect in January, leading to his convenient pre-inauguration downfall.

Usually the arrest of a corrupt Chicago politician would afford, at best, a paragraph of coverage here at Gawker. It's Dog-bites-man news. But Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is a magical figure, who is connected, directly and indirectly, with so many beloved Gawker characters. Steve Dressler put together this little illustration of Blago's Web of Deceit, and all those who've been caught in it. Join us for explanations, below.

Hey, Obama press availability time: president-elect Barry Obama is "saddened" by the actions of evil criminal governor Rod Blagojevich, but it's an "ongoing investigation," so he won't comment on it. Where have we heard that line before? Oh, right—from the Bush administration, for eight years. Now Barry will just talk about how he met Al Gore, who speaks for the trees. He is actually talking about climate change, and no one is listening. We want to hear about Tony Rezko and Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett and how they're tied up in this mess! No questions! Well, one question: "I had no contact with the governor or his office, so I was not aware of what was happening." Poor Al Gore.

The criminal complaint against impressively corrupt and stupid Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich makes a half-assed effort to hide the identities of everyone not accused of wrongdoing, but with redactions like "President-elect" it is pretty easy to figure out the identities of the people involved. The most interesting unnamed individuals are, of course, Senate Candidates 1-6. Some of them are easy to identify, some less so. The Smoking Gun named 1, 2, 5 and 6—find out who they are, what they want, and how they're related to President Hopey, below.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich kind of threw a bit of a monkey wrench into Barack Obama's pre-inauguration honeymoon today by getting arrested by the FBI for allegedly trying to sell Obama's vacated Senate seat and demanding recompense from the Obama team in exchange for appointing their preferred candidate. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has been investigating Blago (as the cool kids call him) since, like, forever, but nearly all the evidence in the charging document comes from post-election wiretaps. Obama's team wanted Blago to appoint Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett to the position. But Blago wasn't thrilled about their unwillingness to bribe him. But Valerie's a major player in the criminal complaint. Who'll have to testify?

As anyone who watched The Wire knows, when the feds tape and tape and tape someone's phone calls, they're likely to hear them saying something stupid. And in the criminal complaint against Gov. Rod Blagojevich, arrested by FBI agents this morning for allegedly sellling the appointment of President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat, he says plenty of really stupid things. The Smoking Gun has an excerpt and it's loaded with straight-off-the-wire quotes, such as his frank assessment: a Senate appointment "is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."

You want your Chicago-style politics? They don't come much more Chicago-style than this: Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was just arrested, along with his chief of staff, by FBI agents. How many corrupt things can one Governor do before a new ethics law takes effect at the beginning of next year? Blagojevich was apparently trying to set some sort of record. And Rezko's involved! And Tribune Co! Let's start with Rod's charming decision to sell the Senate seat vacated by squeaky clean president-elect Barack Obama!