It appears that Blagojevich was impeached and will face a trial of at least three weeks to determine whether or not he is removed from office. Steve Benen remarks:
As for Blagojevich, who was jogging during the House proceedings, he has vowed not to resign, but will hold a press conferences this afternoon at 3 p.m. eastern.
It seems almost odd that Blagojevich doesn’t just step down with at least a shred of dignity, and say he wants to devote all of his energies to his criminal defense, but given what we know of the governor, expecting rational behavior is asking too much.
I simply don’t understand why people keep insisting that resigning would be the “rational” behavior for Blagojevich, as from where I sit, it wouldn’t be rational at all. His stepping down would be “convenient” for those who wish to be rid of him and do not want to have to go on record with a vote to impeach (or not), and given that I suspect he probably is corrupt, his resignation would probably be for “the best.”
But rational? The rational thing for Blagojevich to do is to fight this until the end. As we have noted before, he has nothing else but the power he wields as Governor, and stepping down would leave him with nothing but Patrick Fitzgerald on his tail. Why step down when you never know if you might win the impeachment battle? Why make a tacit admission of guilt by resigning, when you have asserted all along you are innocent?
Not resigning and fighting this is, from Blagojevich’s standpoint, the only rational course of action. Hell- it is the only course of action he has left. I don’t understand why people don’t get that, and why so many folks were blindsided when he went ahead and made a Senate appointment anyway, despite having been sternly warned by Senate Dems. He may be a crook, but right now, he is acting rationally, given his circumstances.
David Vitter and Larry Craig
INOKIYAD
gopher2b
And one should not consider his final acts as governor and his criminal defense as mutually exclusive. They are very much related. This is, after all, Chicago.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
As notoriously corrupt and seemingly self-deluded as Blago is, I’m in agreement here. Plus, he’s learned "W’s Law" well:
Do it anyway, and dare the bastards to undo it.
He’s playing a variation of that by not resigning and forcing the politicians to take political actions, something inherently corrupt state pols hate doing….in public.
jerry
Well, that and he needs the money.
He’s going broke. Part of the reason he wanted to sell the Senate seat so badly despite knowing the Feds were onto him.
He was offered the option of stepping aside through the impeachment battle and allowing Pat Quinn, the Lt. Gov., to step in "temporarily" while Blagojevich fought the charges.
Blagojevich would have kept drawing a salary, and there wouldn’t be a tacit admission of guilt, if he carefully spun it, he could have come out looking cleaner.
J.W. Hamner
Well there’s always Slate.
MattF
And I suspect that Blago doesn’t put a particularly high marginal value on ‘dignity’– given that he has, right now, a choice between dignity (so called) and power.
Blago’s big problem right now is that the ‘it was just a lot of blather’ defense may be effective in a criminal trial, but it doesn’t work for impeachment and removal from office, which is a political process that punishes political misdeeds.
cervantes
Not to mention the salary. He obviously won’t get another job, he might as well keep collecting the paycheck.
MNPundit
I think they assume that as an elected official he would want to do what is best for the State of IL. Which is kind of silly since few people go into politics for that reason but then, I have pointed out elsewhere that one of the huge problems liberals have is that they rather go into academia instead of power politics.
TenguPhule
Nobody could have expected a politician to follow a course of action most beneficial to himself.
Zifnab
When you know you’re guilty and you know they know you’re guilty, the typical response is to get your affairs in order and try to strike a deal or flee the country. At this point, there’s not much light at the end of Blago’s tunnel, so the punditry is confused as to why he doesn’t just lay down and die.
And the punditry is used to politicians – particularly Democrats – rolling over and giving up without much fight. So the idea that Blago won’t give up confuses them.
jibeaux
Ditto Zif. If he resigned he might’ve kept his 13% approval rating instead of whatever he dipped to. Taking steps to get yourself out of the media spotlight and nationwide hatred and derision has some rational basis, doesn’t it?
John Cole
@Zifnab: I don’t get it- was anyone surprised when OJ pleaded not guilty and then demanded a full trial? Was he just supposed to say “Ok, you got me? Which jail do I report to?”
Mike Jones
I think it would be "rational" for him to resign only if he thinks that damaging information would come out in the trial that could affect the other investigations. Otherwise, though you can argue that it’s not the "noble" or "best for the state" course, it’s clearly most rational for him to fight the charges.
jibeaux
Had there been tapes of OJ saying " I’m going to kill that biyotch and her boy toy", had I represented him I would have covered the advantages of a plea bargain, yes.
Punchy
Serious question–if successfully impeached but not convicted by Fitz, what does a guy like Blago do for work for the rest of his life? If he’s a lawyer, no firm would touch him. Politics would be a no-no. Think tanks would shun him. Honestly, does he just grab a gig at Dominick’s bagging canned goods and Epsom salt for octagenarians?
Sister Machine Gun of Mild Harmony
But my GOD man, they sent him a strongly worded letter! How he could take something like that and not fall over resigned is.. is astonishing! No one could have anticipated that it wouldn’t knock him out of office.
Catfish N. Cod
There are two different viewpoints here, John, and they vary according to whose interest is being pursued. There is a rational course of action for the idealized "Governor of Illinois", who only acts in the rational interest of the State of Illinois. That rational "Governor of Illinois" would resign. Then you have the corrupt, likely criminal, and all too human Rod Blagojevich, who rationally acts in the interest of… Rod Blagojevich. His rational course of action is to fight.
The problem is that Rod Blagojevich took an oath to act, as much as possible, as the "Governor of Illinois". He is not doing so; indeed, he is no longer capable of doing so, as the "Governor of Illinois" now has interests that are diametrically opposite of Rod Blagojevich. Which is why "The Governor of Illinois" and Rod Blagojevich are going to be forcibly separated…. a process known as "impeachment and trial".
Church Lady
Why is Blago going broke and why does he need money so badly? The Illinois Governor’s salary is about $150K per year. No, that’s not get-rich-quick money, but it’s not slave wages either. Given that many of his expenses are footed by the residents of Illinois, why is he in such dire financial straits? Just wondering.
Zifnab
@John Cole:
OJ thought he could get away with it. The common wisdom then was that if you threw enough money at lawyers and packed the jury with people sympathetic or antagonistic to a given skin color, you could win just about anything.
No one thinks Blago can pull this off.
That said, I’m sure there were a few finer legal minds pondering why OJ didn’t just try and save himself a few million dollars and try to plea out.
The Other Steve
I would assume that if Blago resigned, he would get a pension.
If he’s thrown out of office he gets nothing.
Now I’m just guessing here, but that seems reasonable.
scarshapedstar
Pity for him that he’s not a Republican; he’d have a multi-million-dollar lobbying job lined up already, or at least a think tank welfare check, or a ghostwritten Washington Times opinion column ferchrissakes.
Incertus
@Mike Jones: Just occurred to me–could Blago be pulling an Ollie North, where stuff that comes out during impeachment (assuming he’s forced to testify) can’t be used against him criminally?
John M
@John Cole:
But John, the vast majority of criminal defendants do plead guilty. Nixon resigned when it was clear that he was going to be impeached. This isn’t like Clinton, where the articles of impeachment were approved by a smaller margin than would be necessary to convict. The vote was 114-1. He’s going to be thrown out of office, and soon. Yes, the power of the governor’s office is one of the last things he has left, but on the other hand, his resignation is basically the only bargaining chip he has left. I guess this is the logical way for him to act if he thinks he can be acquitted, but it isn’t without costs.
demimondian
@Zifnab: Um, you do realize that John’s a former parole officer, right? You might want to ask him if that’s what was really going on.
You’re confusing *Blogo’s* interests with those of the rest of us, in a mirror image of Blago’s original mistake. He thought that our interests reflected his, no matter whether they did or not. You’re thinking that his interests reflect ours, not matter whether they do or not. In fact, they’re quite divergent — Blago has every reason to hold on for the best deal he can get, which means playing chicken for as long as possible, and we have every interest in getting him to step aside quietly, which means trying to convince him to end the game sooner instead of later.
I wonder if Reid makes this mistake a lot. His behavior certainly suggests that he does.
TenguPhule
OJ proved that anything is possible.
There are Wookies on Endor!
comrade rawshark
Are we talking about Blago or rehashing the Clinton years?
Dave S.
Observations about the relationship of Blago’s interests to the interests of the state and people of Illinois, or indeed to anything else belonging to the set of things that are not Blago, proceed from a faulty assumption. There is, in fact, NO relationship between Blago’s interests and anything else on the planet. Blago himself made that quite clear according to the phone transcripts.
We’re having a hard time dealing with that because, as an elected official, he SHOULD be taking these other interests into some kind of account. The sooner we make that leap, as I think John already has, the sooner we will be able to understand why Blago is acting the way he is.
Tsulagi
Not entirely. I can see his fighting impeachment as long as he can. Right now though that seems to be whittled down to a few weeks. But pulling a Nixon seems to be his best option. When he sees he doesn’t have the IL Senate votes to prevent impeachment, he should resign. Maybe that would preserve some financial benefits and perks from being a former governor, maybe not.
But at least it prevents “impeached” from always preceding your name. And when he does get to trial in court, it’s not an already impeached governor sitting in the defendant’s chair in front of a jury.
I’m guessing since the IL House voted 114-1 to bring impeachment, it’s likely he doesn’t have the votes in their Senate. If he doesn’t have them, I don’t think the rational thing to do is force a vote.
jibeaux
With any luck John won’t come around piously claiming Ezra & I are sliming a dedicated public servant and he’ll have no part in it other than pointing out he’s lost 85 statewide elections, thank you very much, but I just found this amusing.
Zifnab
@demimondian:
As far as I can tell, its in Blago’s best interest if he doesn’t go to jail. I’m not sure how digging in his heels and rubbing everyone’s face in his criminality furthers that goal.
Either he really thinks he can beat his Senate hearing (and, hey, Clinton did it – maybe Blago’s got favors we don’t know about) or he just doesn’t care anymore. But in normal good ole boy politics you bow out gracefully and take your slap on the wrist.
MikeJ
What if the Senate convicts him? If he’s already been tried and convicted and sentenced to lose the governorship, Fitzgerald can’t try him on the same charges.
Those will technically be federal charges he’ll be facing eventually, but somebody’s gonna try the double jeopardy defense.
MBunge
"This isn’t like Clinton, where the articles of impeachment were approved by a smaller margin than would be necessary to convict."
Actually, this is exactly like Clinton. Why did Clinton wag his finger and lie so blatently about Monica in the first place? It wasn’t to protect his family and it wasn’t to protect America. It was because he knew that if he admitted it, he’d be gone. The overwhelming reaction, even from folks who ended up defending Clinton against impeachment, would have been "You must resign". All Clinton wanted to do was delay that initial rush to judgment and then see what could happen.
From Blago’s perspective, the worst thing that can happen to him is he won’t be governor and he’ll end up in jail, which will happen with either impeachment or resignation…so why not role the dice and see what happens? Heck, an Illinois Senate trial might give Blago a chance to take some folks down with him, which he might prefer to slinking away.
Mike
Librarian
You know what? I’m all for Blago. Sure, he’s a crook, but he’s got more balls then the entire Dem congressional delegation put together. He called Harry Reid’s bluff and made him look like an amateur Boy Scout. You’ve just got to hand it to him. Hell, I bet he somehow avoids getting thrown out of office and getting convicted. You never know.
passerby
100% I agree with you John. I like the rationale of Patterson, the only dessenting vote: I haven’t any first hand knowledge of the allegations.
And someone else is quoted as saying (paraphrasing): If the US Atty is going to indict him then get on with it.
…because maybe he knows where the other politicos’ skeletons are buried and the whole impeachment brouhaha may be a giant case of the pots calling the kettle black?
As soemone noted upstream: after all, it’s Chicago.
Splitting Image
"I don’t get it- was anyone surprised when OJ pleaded not guilty and then demanded a full trial? Was he just supposed to say “Ok, you got me? Which jail do I report to?”"
Actually, yes. OJ actually fought the charges and "won", in the sense that he was declared "not guilty", but the trial was sufficiently well-covered that practically everybody thought of him as a murderer who beat the rap.
Facing a life sentence, what OJ did probably made sense. In Blagojevich’s case, you have to consider that even though he was caught on tape making some very unwise comments, what he was trying to do is considered perfectly normal behaviour by many people. If he had quickly dropped out of sight, he may have made it easier to stage a comeback later once the affair fell off people’s radars. Then he could start claiming that he was just doing his job and happened to make a mistake just when some other politicians were looking for someone to make an example of. Now he’s been the centre of a national story for two months running and there is less of a chance of people forgetting.
I would compare Blago to Larry Craig in this regard. Craig’s arrest originally made no headlines, but trying to withdraw his guilty plea and "clear his name" made him a running joke for months. In hindsight, he should have pled no contest and been done with it.
Brick Oven Bill
Yes. But don’t forget the book deal. The book deal is f_cking golden. It is worth many times Jesse’s $1 million.
gopher2b
It’s not the Senate trial where he’ll take everyone down. It’s the criminal trial. Believe me, he’s forming an enemies list as we speak and I wouldn;t be quite surprised if he doesn’t try to turn on every politician in Illinois…Daley included. Whether anyone will believe him is a different story.
demimondian
@Zifnab: But the impeachment hearing and subsequent trial in the Senate won’t result in him being imprisoned; in fact, making a deal with the House or Senate could well work against his long term interests on that score.
Pretend for the moment that you’re a sociopath in that context. Do you have anything to gain by bailing? Not really — particularly if you project your own complete selfishness onto others. Do you have anything to lose? Sure. Your term might end before they act, and the next legislature might not have the stomach to fight the battle again. A major catastrophe might give you a chance to make yourself a popular hero, taking the issue off the table. In the end, the Senate might not convict. Playing good boy gains you nothing — and loses you any chance for a positive outcome.
Tsulagi
@MikeJ:
Nope, double jeopardy doesn’t apply. The IL Senate is not a state or federal court. And if there’s a successful impeachment vote, he doesn’t go to jail. He loses the keys to the governor’s office and executive washroom. Or more likely with Blago, they’ll have to re-key the locks because he won’t give them up.
gnomedad
I can see the governorship as a bargaining chip, but what did the Burris appointment do expect piss people off? Although maybe the point is that it was so lame that he couldn’t possibly have been bribed to do it.
CJ_n_PA
You have to remember that this is Illinois politics. If Blago is dirty (and it sure looks like he is), he probably has a lot of information on other dirty pols. I would bet that he may be able to implicate some or many of those that just voted for impeachment.
He may be playing chicken with a group of people who really don’t want to see an impeachment trial. I expect to see a resignation followed by a decent job offer from a "friend".
demimondian
@gnomedad: I think Blago misjudged how harsh the response would be. I think he did a pretty cold-hearted cost-benefit analysis of the actions: the action would change the terms of the debate – and it might well be that he would be able to barter Burris’ withdrawal for better terms, if worse came to worst. More, Burris’ appointment created someone who owed him (Blago) a favor later on. As to any annoyance people felt? Well, what were they going to do about it? Impeach him faster? (Yes, but he apparently missed that minor point.)
Punchy
Methinks Blago’s defense will be of the full-on Chewbaca variety.
Zifnab
But it doesn’t really seem to help with the inevitable criminal prosecution – which is what he should really be worried about. I mean, I guess if evidence in the Senate trial spoils itself for the criminal trial it could help. But the Senate isn’t going to need nearly as much evidence as a criminal court. That’s more a trial by public opinion than a trial by jury anyway.
If Blago doesn’t want to go to white collar businessman jail, it seems like he would do himself some good in resigning now if only because it really would free up time to prepare for a criminal trial. It’s not like those things just take care of themselves.
J.D. Rhoades
I’ve represented defendants who were on video, leaning in the window of the car, their faces filling the screen like a goddamn full moon, saying, "you need any more of that, come on back and ask for Leroy. L-E-R-O-Y. My phone number is…." And then they sit in court and say "That ain’t me, I’m innocent, I ain’t pleadin’ to a damn thing!"
Blago’s the same breed, just better dressed.
steve
just listen to blagos presser…i say let him go and quash the indictment, he wants women not to get cancer and all illinois children to have health insurance…LET HIM GO!
John Cole
They had motive, years of abuse, his blood all over the entire god damned city, dna evidence out the wazoo, a slow speed chase to Mexico everyone in the country and half the people in the world watch, and a confession in jail to Rosie Grier, and OJ was a free man until a few weeks ago. Fitzgerald has nothing on the mass of evidence against OJ.
Tsulagi
@gnomedad:
To Blago there would be value in that. And more.
First, stick it to Reid and federal Dems who dared him to do it. Appeal in that.
Second, embarrass Obama and Emanuel who wouldn’t play ball. More win.
Third, make a Senate appointment quickly as a tactic to try taking the steam out of the call for his impeachment. Impeachment was first brought up as a way to keep him from making an appointment. Blago preempted that reason.
Sure, given the cleanliness of IL politics Blago may have some dirt on those in the House that voted to bring impeachment. Probably senators too. But voting 114-1 in the House to bring it may be the IL Dems way of saying “You’re not the Don of us.”
Plus, IL politics have been getting some unwanted attention. Probably IL Dems don’t want to be seen as the undisputed leader taking the dirty politics title away from the perennial LA contender and that hard-charging newcomer, Alaska. To maintain some semblance of honor, with this impeachment IL Dems may be telling Capo Blago he’s going to take a public hit for the good of the family. It’s going to happen, and if you fight it bringing up other family dirt, we got long memories and collectively we can be a lot nastier than you.
passerby
This. Even though the some of the tape evidence has been made public (clearly indicating Blago’s intent for self enrichment) what are the specific charges and why is the US attorney not moving (publicly) on the case? Bribery? Conspiracy? Malfeasance?
Rep Currie D-Chicago chair of the IL House cmte on impeachment said "Due to his conduct, the governor has failed to uphold the oath of office,…and should be impeached." I agree with her reasoning but why is this whole situation being allowed to fester without formal charges being made already?
It’s as though Fitz came out of the shadows long enough to blow the whistle on Blago (which caused this political upheaval) and then dropped off the radar under "continuing investigation". What’s going on up there?
David Hunt
Because it wouldn’t have saved him a dime. Four words: Wrongful Death Civil Suit. The evidence of his guilt was strong enough that he lost and had a multi-million dollar judgment made against him even with a not-guilty verdict from the criminal trial. If he had plead guilty, that guilty plea would have been Plaintiff’s Exhibit A at the civil trial. He could reasonably expected to lose every penny of the millions of legal expense that he didn’t spend on a criminal defense in fighting off a civil suit and losing the rest of it and more in a damages. Plus he’d have been in prison at least until he was old and grey. So he didn’t really lose any money and he got the added benefit of staying out of prison…and personally I think that benefit is priceless. So to sum up: I think scumbag O.J. did what was in his own best interest and his lawyers gave him “good” advice, even if they bled him dry in legal fees.
Civil Trial Trivia: I remember a legal expert talking about the suit and saying that defining question of the civil trial was, “Has there ever been a worse witness than O.J. Simpson?” Apparently, his guilt was freaking obvious when plaintiff’s lawyers actually got to dissect his story.
passerby
This just keeps getting better and better. Today IL Supreme Court ruled:
Because the Secretary of State had no duty under section 5(1) of the Secretary of State Act to sign and affix the state seal to the document issued by the Governor appointing Roland Burris to the United States Senate, Petitioners are not entitled to an order from this court requiring the Secretary to perform those Acts. Under the Secretary of State Act, the Secretary’s sole responsibility was to register the appointment, which he did. No further action is required by the Secretary of State or any other official to make the Governor’s appointment of Roland Burris to the United States Senate valid under Illinois law.
[Excerpted from the Court’s Opinion]
But the IL SoS has refused to sign something or affix his seal and thereby, the SoS has put the ball back into the US Senate’s court (or so the media are characterizing it as such).
John M
99 percent of the people in jail had far less evidence against them than OJ, even 99 percent of rich people with good lawyers. Even as far as rich man’s justice goes, the OJ case was one of a kind and doesn’t usefully analogize to any other criminal case or similar proceeding. OJ won the lottery.
jibeaux
@David Hunt:
Well, those are awfully good points, as is the thought that the OJ trial doesn’t usefully analogize elsewhere. Yes, the old Chris Rock days discussing the hypothetical trial of "Orenthal the Bus Drivin’ Murderer", good times…
David Hunt
No double jeopardy, even against state charges. Impeachment trials are not criminal trials and can impose no criminal penalty. I’m not familiar with the Illinois constitution, but I’ll gladly bet all the money in my pockets vs all the money in your pockets that the maximum penalty allowed is expulsion from office and (maybe) being disallowed from holding a state office in Illinois from now until the End of Time. No criminal jeopardy means no double jeopardy defense is possible. The claim would be laughed out the the courtroom.
passerby
IL SoS says:
White issued a statement Friday afternoon, saying, "I want to be clear that I could not and will not in good conscious sign my name to any appointment made by Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill the senate vacancy. This governor was arrested in part for trying to sell this very same senate seat.
"I want to thank the Illinois Supreme Court for their ruling today. They have affirmed what Attorney General Lisa Madigan and I have maintained all along: that I have fulfilled my legal obligations to appoint Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate."
How difficult would it be to vet Burris and clear him?? Seems like those folks don’t want that one to be in the US Senate.
shortstop
David Hunt already ‘splained why no double jeopardy, but maybe I can help with this:
He owes $750,000 on mortgages on his Chicago home; $150K on a mortgage on his DC condo, which he apparently kept in case Obama called and offered him HHS or Energy; and $500K to his last lawyer, who quit in midstream after not getting paid. Now Genson’s ka-chinging up the charges. The $12,500 or so Blago got for sticking around last month ain’t gonna go far with all of that, but maybe it kept him and the girls in groceries and running pants.
Church Lady
@shortstop-
O.K. The guy has a job paying $150K a year, yet banks have made almost a million in mortgage loans to the guy. Now we know why the economy has melted down. Damned subprime lenders. :)
Don
Fitz taking his time or Fitz dragging his heels? He’s been on Blago since at least 2006 so why the drop now? Ostensibly it was to prevent the potential tainting of a US Senate seat, but he had to know Blago’d still be able to appoint someone anyway (as he did).
Another side note: not sure if I remember correctly, and by all means correct me if I’m not, but I thought I read something about a 30-day time limit on turning a criminal complaint into formal charges or something like that. Today’d be day 32…
Semi-related, during the whole Plame outing "investigation", reading around, I tripped over a Sheldon Drobny postings at HuffPo (here, and two more later here, and here) that painted a less rosy picture of Fitzgerald. Draw your own conclusions but Fitzmas isn’t on my holiday list.