Blagojevich shuns trial, hits the TV circuit
At the Illinois Senate, the impeachment case proceeded. "The fix is in," the governor said.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Gov. Rod Blagojevich's impeachment trial opened yesterday with a vacant chair reserved for the governor, who boycotted the proceedings and instead spent the day on the TV talk-show circuit in New York, complaining he is being railroaded.
"The fix is in," Blagojevich declared on ABC's
Good Morning America.
As the Illinois Senate assembled for the first impeachment trial of a U.S. governor in more than 20 years, David Ellis, the House-appointed prosecutor, told the chamber that he would show that Blagojevich "repeatedly and utterly abused the powers and privileges of his office."
In one of his first orders of business, Ellis won approval from the Senate to summon as a witness an FBI agent who oversaw the profanity-laden wiretaps that led to Blagojevich's arrest on corruption charges last month.
With Blagojevich declining to present a defense, Illinois senators could vote within days on whether to oust the 52-year-old Democrat on a variety of charges, including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President Obama.
State senators maintained that the trial would be fair, despite Blagojevich's attacks on the process. "We all took an oath to do justice according to the law," said Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, a Republican. "I know that everyone is taking the matter seriously and that no one will stand in the way of justice."
Blagojevich, in his appearances yesterday on
Good Morning America
and
The View,
said some of his most inflammatory remarks from the wiretaps had been taken out of context. But when pressed, he would not elaborate, and he insisted he had done nothing illegal.
"I'm here in New York because I can't get a fair hearing in Illinois," Blagojevich said between TV appearances.
The women of
The View
yukked it up with Blagojevich, mussed his often-mocked helmet of hair, and asked him to do his impersonation of President Richard Nixon.
"Come on just say, 'I am not a crook.' Do it," cohost Joy Behar said, egging him on to a clapping audience.
"I'm not going to do that," Blagojevich said. "But let me make this perfectly clear, let me make this perfectly clear: I didn't do anything wrong."
In one of the most surprising interviews of the day, Blagojevich said he briefly considered naming Oprah Winfrey to the Senate.
Winfrey said she would have turned him down. "I'm pretty amused by the whole thing," Winfrey told
The Gayle King Show
on Sirius XM Radio. "I think I could be senator, too. I'm just not interested."
On
The View,
Blagojevich ducked questions from Barbara Walters, who asked him to explain prosecutors' allegations about wiretapped conversations. "Here's your chance," she said. "No lawyers. You're talking to the public. Please answer that part of it; otherwise, you know, why are you wasting time on these programs? Did you say those things?"
Blagojevich wouldn't take the bait. "Whatever the tapes are, they're going to come out, and they'll speak for themselves," he said. "The tapes will show the whole story."
The impeachment trial opened with the presiding judge, Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, telling senators: "This is a solemn and serious business we're about to engage in."
When Fitzgerald asked whether the governor was present, there was a long silence. The seats set aside for Blagojevich and his attorney were vacant. Fitzgerald ordered the proceedings to continue as if Blagojevich had entered a plea of not guilty.
No other Illinois governor has been impeached, let alone convicted in a Senate trial. It would take a two-thirds majority - or 40 of the 59 senators - to remove Blagojevich. The Senate also could bar him from ever again holding office in Illinois. Democratic Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn would replace him.
The outcome of his impeachment trial has no legal impact on the criminal case against Blagojevich. No trial date has been set on those charges.
Practically the entire political establishment has lined up against him. The second of two House votes on impeachment was 117-1, with his sister-in-law the only dissenter.