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Illinois Legislative Panel Recommends Impeaching Governor

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The Associated Press

Published: January 8, 2009

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - A key panel unanimously recommended
Thursday that Gov. Rod Blagojevich be impeached for abusing his
power, mismanaging Illinois government and committing possible
criminal acts.

The House could vote as early as Friday on whether to make
Blagojevich the first governor impeached in the long, sordid
history of Illinois politics. Impeachment in the House would
trigger a Senate trial to decide whether the second-term Democrat
should be removed from office.

Many on the 21-member special committee called it a sad day for
Illinois, but Rep. Bill Black disagreed.
"I think this is a good, glad, happy day for Illinois because

it points out that nobody is above the law," said Black, a
Republican. "There have been egregious abuses if half of what we
read is true."

Blagojevich has denied any wrongdoing. Spokesman Lucio Guerrero
didn't immediately comment on the impeachment recommendation, but
said there was no chance the governor would resign before the full
House decision. Blagojevich's attorneys left the hearing before the
committee vote.

"The citizens of this state must have confidence that their
governor will faithfully serve the people and put their interests
before his own," the committee report said. "It is with profound
regret that the committee finds that our current governor has not
done so."

Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on federal charges that include
allegations he schemed to profit from his power to name
President-elect Barack Obama's replacement in the Senate.

He later appointed Roland Burris to fill the Senate seat, and
Burris testified Thursday that he did not make a deal with the
governor to win the plum position.

"There was nothing .... legal, personal, or political exchanged
for my appointment to this seat," Burris testified under oath.

While the governor maintains his innocence, the report notes he
did not appear before the committee to explain himself. "The
committee is entitled to balance his complete silence against sworn
testimony from a federal agent," it says.

The committee's report recounts the federal charges, relying on
a sworn affidavit from an FBI agent describing tape-recorded
conversations in which Blagojevich discussed using the seat to land
a job for himself or his wife. The governor also is quoted on the
need to hide any evidence of a trade-off.

"The committee believes that this information is sufficiently
credible to demonstrate an abuse of office of the highest
magnitude," the report says.

It also lays out allegations separate from the criminal charges
- that Blagojevich expanded a health care program without proper
authority, that he circumvented hiring laws to give jobs to
political allies, that he spent millions of dollars on foreign flu
vaccine that he knew wasn't needed and couldn't be brought into the
country.

The committee finished its work as chances grew dimmer that
lawmakers would get transcripts of Blagojevich's secretly recorded
conversations.

Court hearings on the release of the transcripts could run into
early February, U.S. District Chief Judge James F. Holderman said
Thursday.

Meanwhile, Blagojevich's defense attorneys urged Holderman to
throw U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and all of his assistants
off the case, charging in a motion that Fitzgerald violated rules
about pretrial publicity at a Dec. 9 news conference announcing the
charges.

Federal prosecutors immediately retorted that the effort was
"meritless."

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