Blago says he didn’t get into minutia of state

CHICAGO (AP) – Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tells jurors at his corruption retrial that he never got into the nitty-gritty of state business and left it to one of his 57,000 state workers.

That explanation came Thursday as Blagojevich denied he ever tried to use a promised state school grant to squeeze Rahm Emanuel’s Hollywood agent brother to hold a fundraiser for him.

He told jurors he never knew details about the status of the grant or how much of it had been paid.

He said about the grant, “You know the old Freddy Price thing, ‘Not my job.”‘

One charge against Blagojevich is that he sought to withhold a grant for a school in then-U.S. Rep. Emanuel’s district to pressure his brother to raise campaign cash.