Gov's office releases 2 federal subpoenas

SPRINGFIELD-Gov. Blagojevich’s office late Friday released two federal subpoenas it received last year that sought hiring information and computer data.

But it is unclear from the documents why federal investigators requested the information.

The release of the subpoenas came just before a Monday court hearing in which a judge is expected to decide whether the Blagojevich administration has to make public all of the subpoenas it has received in a far-ranging federal corruption probe.

The Better Government Association sued to gain access to those documents. And in late February, the governor’s office produced a letter from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office asking that federal subpoenas remain private, except for the two that Blagojevich released late Friday.

One of the subpoenas asks for all documents related to “grading scales” for particular job titles in the Corrections Department and the Commerce and Economic Opportunity Department.

The other sought a broad range of computer data through June 23, 2006 from the governor’s office and 17 state agencies.

“We've worked hard to comply with the U.S. attorney’s direction not to disclose or discuss subpoenas. They recently informed us that it was no longer necessary to keep these two subpoenas confidential,” Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said.