The Bra Wire That Brought Down Blago

The FBI corruption investigation that ended with the Illinois governor started in the bra of a surburban Chicago hospital exec, Nina Burleigh writes in the New Yorker. In 2003, Pamela Davis was trying to get a new building approved when she was told to use a certain contractor or kiss the project goodbye. She called the FBI and "after that, I had the three stooges in the garage telling me they’d help me.”

For seven months, Davis, bra wire in place—"I thought it would fall out all the time"—met with dirty businessmen eager to make money on the hospital industry. Eventually, the Sun-Times blew Davis' cover by publishing her name, and she was done. But the investigation went on, culminating when Gov. Rod Blagojevich was recorded talking about selling Barack Obama's Senate seat. (More Pamela Davis stories.)