As Trial Starts, Blagojevich Mounts Defense on TV
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Date: 1/26/2009 9:55:37 AM
Sender: Democrat
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As Trial Starts, Blagojevich Mounts Defense on TV
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — It is not easy to upstage one’s own impeachment trial, but Rod R. Blagojevich, the embattled governor of Illinois, appeared on Monday to be doing just that.
As state senators began gathering in this downstate capital city of 116,000 to hear accusations of wrongdoing, overstepping and deal-making in Illinois’ first impeachment trial of a governor, Mr. Blagojevich began a day of national television interviews, aimed at reaching millions, in his own defense.
Repeatedly, Mr. Blagojevich said he was innocent of federal criminal accusations against him — including claims he tried to sell President Obama’s former Senate seat for money, a high-paying job or a cabinet position — and denounced lawmakers’ impeachment trial against him as unfair.
“When the whole story comes out, you’ll see that the effort was to work to have a senator who can best represent Illinois and one that can help us create jobs and provide health care,” Mr. Blagojevich said of the Senate seat on “Good Morning America.” In addition to many others already known to be among those Mr. Blagojevich had considered for the job, he said for the first time on Monday that he had, at one point, pondered asking Oprah Winfrey to take the post.
“The fix is in,” Mr. Blagojevich said of the impeachment trial, explaining why he would be conducting interviews in New York rather than appearing in the Illinois Senate chambers here on Monday afternoon.
Legal and political analysts said Mr. Blagojevich’s decision to skip representation in the impeachment trial here and instead take to the airwaves suggested that he had given up on remaining in office and was now looking ahead to federal criminal charges — and potential jurors — he faces. In the impeachment hearing, removal seemed all but certain; but on television, these analysts said, Mr. Blagojevich could try to write his own narrative.
Here, meanwhile, lawmakers said they were pressing ahead, with or without the governor, in what they described as a swift but thorough impeachment trial. The trial had been expected to last a week and a half, perhaps longer. But with Mr. Blagojevich’s decision to skip the proceedings, some predicted it could end within a few days. If at least 40 of the state’s 59 senators vote to remove Mr. Blagojevich, he would be immediately replaced by Pat Quinn, the lieutenant governor.
Like Mr. Blagojevich, Mr. Quinn is a Democrat. So are most of this state’s constitutional officers and majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. Still, relations have been tense since Mr. Blagojevich took office six years ago. Many here have long complained that Mr. Blagojevich was isolated, secretive and unwilling to collaborate.
In Springfield, there has been passing talk of impeachment for months, but the efforts immediately turned urgent after Mr. Blagojevich was arrested by federal agents in Chicago on Dec. 9. He is accused of trying to sell the Senate seat (to which Mr. Blagojevich ultimately appointed Roland W. Burris, a longtime political figure here); trying to squeeze campaign contributions from a children’s hospital; trying to force the removal of an editorial writer from The Chicago Tribune; and raising as much campaign financing as possible from those with state contracts before an ethics law went into effect this year.
Mr. Blagojevich, who has denied wrongdoing and has yet to be formally indicted by federal prosecutors, has mocked the legislature’s impeachment process. He has suggested that lawmakers really wanted to remove him because he has sparred with them on matters of policy, and said they would, without him, now raise taxes.
He said the impeachment procedure (a “kangaroo court,” in the words of his lawyers) barred him from calling witnesses he would wish to bring in — like Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff; Valerie Jarrett, the president’s adviser; Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., who was once considered as a replacement in the Senate for Mr. Obama; and a long list of senators and governors.
In fact, Mr. Blagojevich could have presented witnesses, but the state Senate’s rules bar calling any witnesses who might create a problem for the federal criminal case. Some on the list, like Mr. Emanuel and Ms. Jarrett, were part, at least in passing, of the federal case. Their names have been mentioned in connection to intercepted phone calls from Mr. Blagojevich and his associates about Mr. Obama’s former Senate seat.
Lawmakers here have dismissed the governor’s criticisms. Though Illinois law gives little guidance on the matter, the impeachment trial rules were modeled largely after those used in the similar trial of former President Bill Clinton.
On an overwhelming vote, the state House earlier this month sent the matter to the Senate. The House lawmakers accused Mr. Blagojevich of trying to sell the Senate seat, but also of seeking campaign contributions in exchange for state contracts and grants, of pressing through health care provisions not approved by state lawmakers, and of other failings.
Though it will be presided over by the state’s Supreme Curt chief justice, by design, this trial will not look like an average criminal or civil trial. Hearsay will be allowed. The standard of proof shall be up to each senator. Members of the House are expected to testify about matters they learned about the governor in their investigation of him in recent weeks, when a committee held seven days of meetings before recommending the impeachment trial to the full House.
In the end, if the senators vote to remove Mr. Blagojevich, they may also take a second vote on whether he should be barred from holding public office in this state again.
With scheduled appearances on numerous television shows, including The View and Larry King on CNN, on Monday, much remained uncertain about what Mr. Blagojevich might offer next. For days, there have been suggestions that the governor’s lawyers might yet file legal action to try to block the impeachment trial, a notion that his aides did not rule out over the weekend.
It seemed clear, too, that though many hoped to separate themselves from whatever dealings they had with Mr. Blagojevich, he intended to go right on reminding people of those ties, noting in his interviews on Monday and in recent days his conversations with Mr. Obama’s associates, with other national leaders, and with members of the state legislature now weighing his fate.
For years, Mr. Blagojevich had national political aspirations, perhaps even as a presidential contender, those who have worked with him say. Some here doubted his chances at that level; he is all Chicago — the nasal accent, the hard-to-pronounce name from the Chicago neighborhoods where he grew up the son of immigrant, working-class parents, the Chicago alderman father-in-law with powerful political connections. But on Monday, Mr. Blagojevich (whose name everyone at last seems to know how to pronounce) was expected to get his chance on a national stage, albeit not for what he might once have hoped would put him there.
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