Blagojevich’s retrial postponed until April 2011
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich won a delay until April 20 of his scheduled retrial on corruption charges, which means the trial won’t be going on while Chicagoans vote for their next mayor.
Judge James Zagel of the U.S. District Court granted the defense request for a delay, saying the Democrat’s scaled-down defense team will have to “retool” when he is retried on nearly two-dozen corruption counts. Among the charges are that Blagojevich attempted to sell President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat.
The first trial ended with Blagojevich convicted of lying to investigators while the jury deadlocked on 23 other counts, leading Zagel to declare a mistrial on those charges. A lone juror was reported to be the holdout among jurors intent on convicting him of additional charges, and prosecutors wanted to retry him in early January.
Testimony spared Obama administration officials any embarrassment, though former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel apparently held discussions about the Senate seat with Blagojevich.
Emanuel resigned earlier this month and is laying the groundwork for a campaign for mayor of Chicago, with the election to replace the retiring Richard Daley taking place Feb. 22.
Blagojevich has kept an unusually low profile lately, though he has said he would welcome another appearance on a reality show. He did speak to a college symposium, for a fee.
Photo credit: Reuters/Jeff Haynes (Blagojevich in 2008)
Tips from juror for Blago retrial
Patrick Fitzgerald take note — when you retry Rod Blagojevich, keep it simple.
That’s the advice of the foreman of the hung jury that was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on 23 counts in the corruption case against the ousted Illinois governor.
Jury foreman James Matsumoto told NBC’s “Today Show” that prosecutors should re-try the case. Asked what advice he had for U.S. attorney Fitzgerald, Matsumoto said:
“If possible …streamline the case, concentrate on areas where they have more information and not rely so much on witness testimony which was sometimes weak. That’s where we split the most.”
“The major flaw (in the case) was probably the complexity … the amount of information that we had to digest. The length of the judge’s instructions to us,” the foreman said. He described the 14 days of deliberations as “fairly amicable” though the anger and frustration level rose as time went on and they could not reach agreement.
Matsumoto said the jury, which did find Blagojevich guilty on one count of lying to federal officials, just couldn’t reach unanimous agreement on the other 23 charges that ranged from racketeering to conspiracy, mail fraud and attempted extortion.
The allegations against Blagojevich included an attempt to sell or barter the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama after he was elected president.
So in other words, break the trial down into individual counts, individual crimes. It may even be preferable to have separate trials on separate counts.
Blago judge says Obama doesn’t have to testify
The federal judge overseeing the corruption trial of Rod Blagojevich said he sees no need for President Barack Obama to testify, denying a defense request, though he left open the possibility.
“The testimony of the president is not material to this case,” James Zagel of the U.S. District Court in Chicago said at a hearing on Friday.
The issue, as Zagel framed it, was whether Blagojevich thought that a union official coming to see him about who best to fill Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat was an emissary for the president.
According to a defense filing, the unnamed union offiicial said he discussed the seat with Obama the day before the Nov. 4, 2008, election.
Blagojevich, a two-term Democrat ousted from office last year, is accused of trying to sell the Senate seat, which he had the power to fill. He goes on trial on June 3 on 24 counts related to using his office to leverage campaign contributions and job offers for himself and his wife.
Zagel left open the possibility that Obama, a Chicagoan, could be asked to testify later in the trial if the defense presents “affirmative evidence.”
“The president might have something to say … I might change my view on this,” Zagel said.
How is the fact that Obama and Blago had a private conversation, in the back seat of a car, a short amount of time before the arrest, not relevent?
He also had a conversation with Blago via 2 other messenger deliverers. This was in the redacted, covered-up part of the testimony that has already been given, released to the press, and admitted to, by Obama.
Blagojevich asks for President Obama to testify
Rod Blagojevich’s attorneys have asked for President Barack Obama to testify at the former Illinois governor’s corruption trial, saying he would be “a critical witness.”
In an apparent mechanical error, blacked-out portions of the defense’s request were visible for some time online, and were subsequently published on the websites of Chicago’s daily newspapers.
Among the disclosures in the redacted portions of the defense motion were that Obama spoke to Blagojevich on December 1, 2008, eight days before Blagojevich was arrested by FBI agents.
Blagojevich has been charged with trying to sell Obama’s former Senate seat and trying to leverage official acts for money or jobs, including a position as a Cabinet Secretary in Obama’s administration.
“President Obama is a witness to the conduct alleged as well as an impeachment witness to at least two of the government’s critical witnesses,” defense lawyers said in a court filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
“The defense does not take lightly the overwhelming schedule the President has and the security constraints surrounding his testimony. A videotape deposition will remedy both of those legitimate concerns.”
Obama could shed light on potential witnesses Tony Rezko, the convicted fund-raiser for Obama and Blagojevich, and an unnamed union official who met with Blagojevich about the Senate seat.
No head-butting, judge tells Blagojevich
No head-butting, no fighting, no macho posturing, the judge overseeing former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s upcoming corruption trial said on Wednesday.
If the federal courtroom is sounding more like a boxing ring, the disgraced politician suggested as much. On Tuesday Blagojevich called out prosecutor U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, telling reporters “I hope you’re man enough to be there (in court) tomorrow too.”
Blagojevich adopted a calmer tone after Judge James Zagel told both sides he alone would decide which evidence would be heard and that he would “not permit the legal equivalent of head-butting.”
Boxing matches have rules, just like trials, the judge said, noting combatants can retreat to a neutral corner.
“I’m relieved,” Blagojevich said. “The judge appears to be a very fair man.”
Blagojevich, indicted and ousted from office last year, says he is innocent of trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama and other charges. He urged anyone willing to listen to judge him based on a hearing of all the government’s tape recordings of him while he was in office. He says he was engaged in “political horse-trading” and nothing more.
Zagel said he would determine how many of the roughly 500 hours of court-approved tapes would be heard. “The rules are determined by the referee. I’m the referee. I decide,” Zagel said.
Blagojevich trial to begin in June
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s trial will begin in June, which gives fellow Democrats reason to squirm before the mid-term elections.
The judge in Blagojevich’s corruption case turned down the defense’s request to delay the trial to November, which would have been after the November 2 election.
“I think there has been adequate time” to prepare, Judge James Zagel of the U.S. District Court in Chicago said.
Defense lawyers had argued a pending Supreme Court ruling on the “honest services” law, expected in June, would have a bearing on trial strategy. They also complained of having to review a mountain of evidence.
“The evidence is going to be the same no matter what the law is,” Zagel said, in turning aside the defense motion that he labelled a “red herring.”
Prosecutors said the case is about bribery, extortion and other malfeasance by Blagojevich, without suggesting who else might be implicated.
Defense lawyers have said they might try to call White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and other administration figures to show Blagojevich was not leveraging his power to fill President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat.
Blago says he’s “blacker than Barack Obama”
Believe it or not, Rod Blagojevich is African-American — and more so than President Barack Obama. At least, that’s what the former Illinois governor tells Esquire magazine in a new interview. “It’s such a cynical business, and most of the people in the business are full of (expletive deleted) and phonies, but I was real, man — and am real. This guy, he was catapulted in on hope and change, what we hope the guy is. What the (expletive deleted)? Everything he’s saying’s on the teleprompter,” Esquire quotes Blago as saying about the president, without the expletives deleted.
“I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up,” he explains.
Blago is, in fact, a white Democrat who gained prominence for introducing big male hair to the national political arena during a corruption probe that led to his indictment on charges of trying to sell Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. He denies the accusations.
Esquire doesn’t say whether Blago thinks Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid should resign for calling Obama a “light-skinned” black man “with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” Reid’s comments were made in private but published in the new book, “Game Change,” by Time magazine reporter Mark Halperin and New York magazine writer John Heilemann.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who actually is black, says Reid should go — just like former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott went in 2002 after praising former segregationist and long-time Senator Strom Thurmond. Reid has apologized for “using such a poor choice of words” and Obama has accepted the apology.
But Blago does let the magazine in on the legal strategy he’s contemplating for his upcoming trial in Chicago.
“I’m absolutely going to testify,” Blago promises Esquire. “Absolutely. I’m going to go up there and tell the whole truth — and the complete truth.”
I do not believe that “Blago” was speaking about color when said the word “Black”. I think this was a metaphorical take on his position in the Democrat Party right now.
The First Draft: Blago’s new groove: published author
Ousted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, whose corruption case put the national spotlight on big male hair and crooked Chicago politics, has reinvented himself as the author of a book that claims to offer insights into White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s political ambitions.
Blagojevich, who faces trial after allegedly trying to sell President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, says in the book, “The Governor,” that Emanuel asked him for help in reclaiming his congressional seat after two years with the Obama administration, according to NBC News.
Emanuel, who entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 as the Democratic representative for the North Side of Chicao, apparently hoped to regain his seat in the 2010 congressional elections.
NBC said an Emanuel spokesman declined comment.
The Chicago Tribune’s account of the new Blagojevich book says the former governor blames overzealous prosecutors and political enemies for his spectacular downfall. He also says his guiding light in selecting a new senator to replace Obama was the question: “How much do I love the people of Illinois?”
He wound up choosing Democrat Roland Burris, the book says, because of Burris’ famously big ego — no one but him would accept the appointment and fight to be seated under the circumstances, according to the Tribune.
After his arrest in December, Blagojevich was impeached, convicted by the Illinois Senate and ousted from office. His corruption trial is scheduled for next year.
Rod Blagojevich is like the energizer bunny – he just keeps going and going. His wacky antics are getting hard to keep up with. See a timeline of them all: http://timelines.com/topics/rod-blagojev ich
Sen. Burris won’t run in 2010
After just a few months in office and having fiercely resisted calls for his resignation, Illinois Senator Roland Burris has decided Congress is not his calling after all.The Chicago Democrat appointed to fill the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama plans to announce on Friday he won’t seek election to a full six-year term in 2010. Word leaked out a day early, with sources in Chicago and Washington confirming Burris’ plans to forgo the midterm election.The Chicago Sun-Times broke the news, reporting that Burris had raised only about $20,000 toward what undoubtedly would have been a very expensive campaign. The newspaper also quoted a source as saying that Burris, a former Illinois attorney general, was concerned about his legacy.He entered office under a big cloud that never cleared. Burris was appointed on Dec. 30 by former Governor Rod Blagojevich, who later was impeached and indicted on corruption charges — including trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat.Burris escaped a perjury charge last month when prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence aganist him. Burris declared his appointment “perfectly legal” and said he had never offered the ousted governor anything.For more Reuters political news, click here.Photo credit: Reuters/Frank Polich (Burris reacts to audience applause after speaking at a Chicago, church in March)
I am not the judge and jury of Senator Burris or of John Edwards or of any of the members ofCongress who have been in the news lately as being under scrutiny and more to come. I startedthrowing up a trial balloon laced with plenty of speculative conjecture. The Democrats are solivid concerning Dick Cheney possibly protecting the entire country by simply scotching a vitalreport so that if leaked may have caused our citizens great harm. Maybe Mr. Cheney may have feltthat with the evidence of tomfoolery running through the personal lives of these politicians whohave been fingered, he mummed up so that the information did not wind up in some chorus girl’stape recorder or in a bag man’s receptacle. My wife and kids are alive and well. Whatever you didMr. Cheney, Thank you.http://blogs.reuters.com/ffrontrow/w p-comments-post.php7/12/2009
Blagojevich and the mammogram defense
For those having Rod Blagojevich withdrawal, he popped up again on the airwaves this morning to hammer home his innocence — just in case anyone missed the media blitz last week.
Blagojevich was ousted as governor of Illinois amid accusations he tried to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.
“It was an unlawful and improper impeachment. So I don’t view myself at all as being shamed or disgraced,” Blagojevich said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.
“I view myself, frankly, as being someone who fought real hard for the people and was removed from office because something happened. It was a political opportunity,” he said.
Watch out Washington. If he is indicted and there is a federal trial Blagojevich said he wants “everybody and anybody” that he talked to about the Senate seat to come and tell the truth, including Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and senators Dick Durbin and Harry Reid.
“I did not intend to commit any criminal act. I’m not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing. And I’m eager to have my day in court to prove my innocence,” Blagojevich said.
The former governor shows no signs of drifting quietly into the woodwork.
Richard Nixon, “I am NOT a criminal!”
“I’ve had a chance to be a governor in a big state, and give all of our kids health care, give all of our senior citizens free public transportation, give all uninsured women mammograms and pap smears so they can save their lives.”
<==== Wow, he must be REALLY busy, how does he have time to govern.
