Word: blagojevich
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With the Illinois House's vote by an overwhelming margin today to impeach Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor is assured of having to face at least one trial: in the state senate. But the criminal case against him is also continuing to percolate, if on a delayed schedule...
...Today was also the original deadline for an indictment, one that would most likely lay out the charges in greater detail than initially put forth in the 76-page criminal complaint filed by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at Blagojevich's arrest. But four days ago, a federal judge for northern Illinois granted Fitzgerald's request for a 90-day extension. "The ends of justice served by the extension," according to Chief Judge James Holderman, "outweigh the best interests of the public and the defendants to a speedy trial." He set the new deadline for April 7. (See TIME's gallery...
Chicago's Roland Burris had the opposite problem when he strode into the U.S. Capitol to succeed Barack Obama as the junior Senator from Illinois. Senate majority leader Harry Reid didn't want nobody that somebody sent--if that somebody was Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, arrested in December on charges that he was plotting to sell Obama's seat. Burris, who wasn't accused of any wrongdoing, was rebuffed by the secretary of the Senate. Instead of entering the chamber's cozy confines, where he would have stepped into Obama's role as the lone African American, he retreated...
...Sopranos. Within hours, Senate Rules Committee chair Dianne Feinstein broke with Reid, calling for Burris to join the club. The Senate leader, out on a limb that his comrades were sawing off, soon softened his opposition. "[Bleep]ing golden," the cynic might say, borrowing from the Blagojevich idiom as allegedly captured on a federal wiretap...
...Illinois, but an armed man in uniform stood between the former Illinois attorney general and his seat in the Senate chamber. Yet given the circumstances surrounding Burris’ questionable appointment, Senate Democrats should be doing everything in their power to keep it that way. While Governor Rod R. Blagojevich may technically hold the executive power in Illinois for the time being, his decision to make an appointment to the very seat he is under investigation for auctioning off is preposterous. Democratic leadership was right in originally attempting to stall Burris’ inauguration, and they should have continued...