It speaks volumes about the brazen, pathological and pervasive nature of the “corruption crime spree” alleged against Illinois’s sitting governor, Rod Blagojevich, that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald felt moved to describe it as “staggering”. In fact, in presenting the Justice Department’s 76-page complaint, Fitzgerald claimed that, because a clearly delusional and venal Governor Blagojevich was escalating his crime spree to such irreparable extremes, federal prosecutors felt compelled to arrest him yesterday to stop it. Specifically, the complaint alleges that:
“Blagojevich put a ‘for sale’ sign on the naming of a United States senator [to the seat vacated by President Barack Obama]; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism.”
(Blagojevich arrested for soliciting bribes…even for Obama’s seat, The iPINIONS Journal, December 10, 2008)
Frankly, I thought the evidence of his guilt was so overwhelming that the federal jury empanelled for his case would take only hours to convict him on all counts.
Yet, after an 11-week trial and 14 days of deliberations, jurors managed to convict this impeached former governor yesterday on only one of 24 charges. And it only compounds the feds’ (and Fitzgerald’s) embarrassment that this conviction stemmed from the least serious charge that was hanging over Blago’s head; namely, that of lying to federal agents.
The fact that Blago still faces up to five years on this perjury conviction seems utterly irrelevant to both sides.
This jury shows you that the government threw everything but the kitchen sink at me. They could not prove I did anything wrong – except for one nebulous charge from five years ago.
(A triumphant Blago after the jury’s verdict, Associated Press, August 16, 2010)
Not surprisingly, Fitzgerald has vowed to retry him on all of the 23 charges on which the jury deadlocked. So it’s very likely that yesterday’s apparent victory for Blago will end up being short-lived, if not pyrrhic.
In the meantime, though, there seems little doubt that Blago will continue to make a spectacle of himself on talk shows and reality TV, shamelessly turning his infamy into as much cash as possible. Not to mention that he’s probably betting his life on the fact that America’s blind obsession with reality TV stars gives him a very good shot at getting at least one “lone wolf” on his jury again who thinks he’s too much of a celebrity to be guilty of anything. God help America.
Incidentally, reports are that 11 of the 12 jurors were prepared to convict Blago on all of the more serious charges as well.
Stay tuned…
Related commentaries:
Blagojevich arrested for soliciting bribes
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