Blagojevich Will Go Down Swinging

A lot of us that have been watching the legal proceedings surrounding Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, have been waiting for the circus to begin. The only real salvo from the Blagojevich camp so far has been the accusation that Patrick Fitzgerald, the United States Attorney in charge of the prosecution, does not want all the FBI’s recordings to be released. A few days ago, however, the first moves to involve other sitting members of state and federal government in the trial were made.

Dick Durbin has been subpoenaed. Durbin doesn’t seem worried, though. Apparently Senator Durbin had a single 15 minute conversation with Blagojevich over who should get the appointment to Obama’s vacant Senate seat. According to Durbin the conversation was pretty bland and did not involve anything illict. Given that Durbin is a Machine Democrat from Chicago I find that a little hard to believe, but I am also not aware of anyone accusing the senior senator from Illinois of any wrongdoing in this case so I suppose I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt… for now.

But the real bombshell is Blagojevich’s attempt to get President Obama served with a subpoena. The motion was heavily redacted in its public form, but a computer glitch allowed the world to read the whole thing. In essence the Blago camp is saying then president-elect and his camp did have some knowledge of the proceedings concerning the appointment of a new senator to fill Obama’s vacant seat, despite that camp’s assertion that it had no contact with Blagojevich whatsoever. In the redacted part of the motion a particular contact involving organized labor is specifically spelled out.

It is worth noting that the motion does not specifically cite any wrongdoing by either President Obama or any of his staff. I suppose that accusation will need to wait till trial.

I doubt much will come of all of these motions and subpoenas, or the even wilder ones that are surely to come later on this year, and the reason is not because those motions are all hot air. I am sure there will be some truth behind whatever the Blagojevich camps says, but the state of Illinois and the federal government cannot have the whole truth marched out in front of the American public on this one. It would cause half the state to resign, and Blagojevich knows this. It is the only trump card he has.