Blagojevich out as governor
By AMBER KROSEL -
akrosel@nwherald.com
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| (AP Photo) |
SPRINGFIELD – A 47-minute guest appearance by Rod Blagojevich to his own impeachment trial proved to be too little to stop what had become inevitable.
At 5 p.m. Thursday, after four days of hearing evidence of corruption and wrongdoing, the Illinois Senate voted, 59-0, to remove the governor from office and prevent him from ever holding public office in the state again.
Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, a Blagojevich critic, quickly was sworn in as Illinois’ 41st governor.
“We are ready to move forward,” Quinn said. “We want to make this year a year of reform for Illinois, if we summon the energy of the people, and summon the energy of the members of the Legislature and executive branch.”
Earlier Thursday afternoon, many senators sat with their hands folded, listening intently as chief prosecutor David Ellis presented his closing arguments.
Although a pattern of abuse of Blagojevich’s power went back to his first term, Ellis said, the kicker was his alleged scheme to sell President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat – prompting Blagojevich’s Dec. 9 arrest on federal corruption charges.
“The governor’s own words demonstrated time and time again that he saw the ability to appoint the U.S. senator as a golden goose, as a bargaining chip,” Ellis said. “Being governor is not a right; it is a privilege. And he has forfeited that privilege.”
When the governor entered into the Capitol proceedings Thursday after avoiding his trial and bouncing among national talk shows for a week, his final words in office ended with a plea for his “day in court.”
“I want to apologize to you for what happened, but I can’t, because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Blagojevich said.
State Sen. Dan Duffy, R-Barrington, said he thought that half-apology was “arrogant.”
During closing arguments, Ellis revisited tapings and poster-size transcripts of Blagojevich’s federal wiretap conversations, detailing allegations from the attempted sale of Obama’s U.S. Senate seat to pay-to-play campaign contributions to money laundering.
Ellis also noted that Blagojevich was taped on Nov. 10 saying that he didn’t want to remain in office but was going to “suck it up.”
“The governor has called this trial a kangaroo court,” Ellis said. “He’s called it a sham. ... That’s not what I’ve seen. I’ve seen a body that has deliberated at length. A body that has asked insightful and deliberative questions.”
As Blagojevich glanced at handwritten notes, he argued that he didn’t have a fair impeachment trial and begged for acquittal or an extended hearing. He said he never had plans to resign, because he “felt no wrongdoing.”
“How can you throw a governor out of office, on a criminal complaint, and you haven’t been able to prove any evidence of criminal activity?” Blagojevich asked.
Although he was able to file for witnesses on behalf of his defense, Blagojevich did not do so by the proceeding deadline. During his media blitz, he continually said the Senate would not allow him to call witnesses in his own defense without offering the proper context.
At the end of his testimony, Blagojevich called out Ellis and directed his words at the prosecutor.
“Always, the means were legal, and in most cases, the ends were moral,” he said.
Despite Blagojevich’s passionately delivered arguments, state lawmakers collectively were unmoved.
State Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry, said his speech was a “continuation of the behavior I’ve watched for the last six years.”
“He’s wonderful when he’s on camera, he’s wonderful when he has an audience,” she said. “But what he says has no substance and is basically filled with misinformation and mistruth.”
Blagojevich did not stick around to hear the vote. He took a state plane back to Chicago and returned to his North Side home. But he did not watch the impeachment vote on TV and learned about it only shortly after it took place, according to a public relations firm that he has hired.
“Call it what you want, but it’s just a basic injustice,” Blagojevich said outside his home.
Blagojevich started to return inside but came down from his front stoop after a young neighbor asked whether he’d play hoops with him sometime. He asked the boy, “Do you want to be on TV?” and then put his arm around him, encouraging photographers to snap away.
Asked whether he had any advice for Quinn, he said emphatically: “Don’t raises taxes. He’s gonna raise taxes.”
He also held out the promise of revelations in days to come.
“If you’re willing to listen, maybe later next week, I’d like to tell you some of the inside stuff, and some of the things they were trying to say and do,” he said of the state Senate.
Quinn, the new governor, is a 60-year-old former state treasurer who has a reputation as a political gadfly and once led a successful effort to cut the size of the Illinois House.
“I want to say to the people of Illinois, the ordeal is over,” Quinn said. “In this moment, our hearts are hurt. And it’s very important to know that we have a duty, a mission to restore the faith of the people of Illinois in the integrity of their government.”
• The Associated Press contributed to this report.
