Thursday, December 11, 2008

Gov. Blagojevich's crimes

Wonder what Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich's crimes were? He was charged with two crimes:
(1) conspiring to commit mail fraud by not giving the people of Illinois his honest services.
(2) soliciting a bribe by telling a newspaper that he wasn't going to do them any special favors as long as they were writing editorials demanding his impeachment.

For this he was arrested at 6 AM at his home in his pajamas, and released on $4.5k bail. He has not yet even been indicted.

I think that the DA should have let Jesse Jackson Jr. or a govt informant pay a suitcase full of cash for Obama's senate seat, and see whether Blagojevich accepted it or not. As it is, they have him saying embarrassing things like, “I’ve got this thing and it’s f***ing golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for f***in’ nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And, and I can always use it. I can parachute me there.”

We will never know whether or not Blagojevich would have actually accepted a bribe. He may argue that he was only looking to make a political deal of a sort that is entirely legal, or that he was describing his legal personal ambitions in a clumsy way.

A federal DA should not have this much power. I wonder if Pres. Bush approved the arrest. The DA could have just taken his evidence to the Illinois legislature, and let it decide whether to impeach the governor.

Update: Now the Illinois attorney is trying to get the governor removed on grounds of disability. That is ridiculous.

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