He says he’s being railroaded as a result.
Also, In his address to the IL Senate, he claims he did nothing that other politicians do, implying, I think, that Illinois Senators are no exception.
So.
As the Governor of his state might he have already collected evidence of Pay-to-Play by the very people who threw him out of office?
If he wasn’t allowed to call witnesses, I presume it’s because the impeachment rules in the Illinois State Senate don’t allow for it. I haven’t heard exactly what he said but I think I’m on safe ground in concluding it’s mostly bullshit. I don’t see him trying to blackmail people, he’s just saying his behavior was normal for politicians.
He failed anyway. The Senate voted unanimously, 59-0, to remove him from office, and barred him from ever holding state office in Illinois again. Except as a punchline, he’s finished.
That’s what I presume the rules say too. The trouble is if the rules do say that, then Governor-Not-For-Much-Longer is correct and the rules*** ARE ***B.S.
There is something fundamentally unfair about a procedure where the body that’s doing the deciding, in this case the Illinois Senate, also sets the rules about what evidence they’re going to receive into evidence. Yes, I know that the US Chief Justice Darth Rhenquist said that’s how you do in during Clinton’s impeachment, but it struck me as wrong then too. It seems to me the Trial Judge, not the deciding body, should decide what evidence will be considered otherwise the Trial Judge is just a potted plant.
From what I’ve heard he could call witnesses but not the ones who have been Subpoenaed (I think) in the federal corruption case, and those are the only ones he claimed he wanted to call.
"On Friday, Blagojevich voiced two specific complaints, the first being that the trial rules deny him an opportunity to challenge the charges against him or the documents on which the charges are based.
This is not true.
The governor cannot block the introduction of evidence that he may object to, such as an unsigned letter or a newspaper article; but Rule 14 of the Senate’s trial proceedings lays out exactly how he can challenge the “sufficiency” of such evidence. This evidence — if his argument carried the day — then would be set aside by the Senate.
Unfortunately, the governor’s attorneys blew off Friday’s deadline for making “sufficiency” challenges.
The governor’s second specific complaint is that he cannot call witnesses in his defense.
Again, this is not true.
Under Rule 15 of the impeachment trial proceedings, the governor will, in fact, be able to call witnesses, although only in each case with the Senate’s approval. The same restriction — the Senate must approve — also holds true for prosecution witnesses. "
An impeachment doesn’t send Blago to jail, it doesn’t give him a fine either. All it does is cause him to lose his job. A vast majority of people don’t get a hearing before the Senate before they lose their job. Cry me a river.
Here’s the part I don’t understand. If he was already indicted by a federal grand jury, how was he allowed to fly to NYC to appear on a handful of network shows? Aren’t indictees usually told to stay put?
In other words, then, Blago kneecapped his own defense when he chose to grandstand on a media tour and whine about how he was being wronged instead of showing up at the procedure to defend himself. That’s the same kind of pompous idiocy that landed him in this mess in the first place.
That very question came up on either Matthews’ or Shuster’s MSNBC show today. (I think the latter.)
Blago coughed up his Passport, but he was allowed to travel domestically.
Im sure he figured he was toast anyways so playing the victim to the media was the only strategy avialable to him.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a sweet sweet rush of schadenfreude as I did when I saw that he’d been kicked out by a unanimous vote.
CMIIW but I understood that he was arrested but has yet to be indicted. The Grand Jury investigation is ongoing.
So, how’s this guy going to provide for his wife and kids when off to jail he goes?
I worry about them. Honest. I know what it’s like to be poor, to not to have a pot to pee in.
And what an added burden it will be to be the wife, the daughters of a rotten pol.
From the OP…
As the Governor of his state might he have already collected evidence of Pay-to-Play by the very people who threw him out of office?
One avenue Gov. Rod might pursue is a book, and I can see the title:
So You think I’m Corrupt!
Get the dirt on the real scum bags in Illinois politics
Likewise, the senate couldn’t call up those people either which partially why they relied so heavily on the tapes.
Blagojevich was, however, allowed to use public statements and the like from those people as evidence. So, while he couldn’t call up Rahm Emanuel, he was allowed to enter in media statements from Emanuel stating that he and Blagojevich never had conversations in which deals were being struck for the US Senate seat.
Needless to say, Blagojevich never made use of this opportunity.
So if the reports are right, essentially he took the position that he would not bother appearing by the rules established. Play the martyr card and all that.
Thing is, as discussed earlier impeachment is a political procedure, it is NOT subject to the same rules of evidence of a criminal or civil trial. Still, a sense of basic fair play and recognition of a man’s right to have a “due process” before nailing him, grants the defense the opportunities of either presenting evidence that he did NOT engage in the conduct and trying to convince 20 senators that it is better than the evidence that he did; OR of trying to convince the 20 senators that the alleged conduct may indeed have happened but that the charge that it is an impeachable offense is legal/political BS [a-la Clinton] (*)
BUT blowing off even the semblance of putting up a defense and just showing up at the end to make the one self-serving alocution was a signal that he did NOT even regard it seriously and may have dispelled any remaining reserve among the senators when it came to making it unanimous.
So we bid Hairboy goodbye, and godspeed on his real criminal trial. You can tell he has the acorns to attempt some sort of comeback at the other end of the line.
(* Yes, some people wanted him to be limited to just “Yes or no is that you on the recording”, and the deed done in one or two days, over with. Well, it looks like things went pretty smoothly anyway - less than a month from Call for Articles to giving him the boot is pretty good)
Why would anybody sit for an hour and listen to this guy? I’d be doing a crowd wave or getting a cup of coffee or otherwise letting Mr Hair know that respect was not forthcomming and his speech not appreciated. Try and talk over a crowd of people who suddenly need a cough drop.
“Animal House” springs to mind.
You screwed up, you trusted us?
[cough]Bullshit![/cough]
You don’t often get the defense attorney resigning, in a high-profile case like this.
I’m thinking more,
BLAGOJEVICH: Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether I broke a few laws, or tried to sell a few Senate seats – I did. But you can’t hold a single politician responsible for a few misguided actions. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole Illinois political institution? And if the whole state institution is corrupt, then isn’t this an indictment of our democratic process in general? I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen – isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to me, but I’m not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!
Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about ordinary bench trials where the judge acts as finder of fact as well as making decisions regarding law and procedure? Obviously in normal cases that can only happen if you waive your right to a jury, but it’s not uncommon. Do you really think all bench trials are fundamentally unfair?