On December 9, 2008, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald held an emergency press conference to announce a criminal complaint against then Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. While there were many accusations, the most prominent and inflammatory was...

As predicted on this Blog several months ago, the indictment of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been handed down, and it includes a sweeping RICO charge alleging that Blagojevich and o...

I listened to much of day two of the Illinois Senate impeachment trial of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. This was the day when the smoking gun would be revealed, in the form of four audio tapes just released by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Despite the claims in some of the television and...

On Monday, January 26, 2009, the impeachment trial of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich begins. Nominally, the trial will be held by the Illinois Senate with the Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court presiding. In reality, this case is, and always has been, under the control of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

The...

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich just finished a press conference in which he claimed that he is not participating in the Senate impeachment trial, scheduled to start Monday, because the Senate impeachment trial rules deprive Blagojevich of a fundamentally fair hearing. Blagojevich is right that he is being deprived of a fair...

I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of Illinois politics. I’ve been following the Rod Blagojevich saga as an outsider looking in, from a legal perspective. One things seems clear to me, as we approach the impeachment trial: Rod Blagojevich is very good at making others look bad.

When Illinois...

The Illinois House impeachment committee has just released its Proposed Report on its investigation and recommendation of impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The 69-page report will be the subject of further posts, but one thing is clear, the Report sets up an inevitable clash with U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald over evidence...

Events are moving so quickly in the saga of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, that there has been precious little time to reflect. But as I look back on the past month, I keep thinking of Raymond J. Donovan, and a question keeps nagging me; what if Blagojevich is not guilty?

While many...

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has requested a three month extension of time to bring an indictment against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, stating that he needed more time to review thousands of telephone intercepts and to interview new witnesses. While I can’t presume to know what is in Fitzgerald’s mind, it looks...

A post at Critical Thoughts blog notes the relative silence of the Blagojevich blogoshpere about the request of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald for a three month extension of the time to bring an indictment against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and suggests that Fitzgerald may have moved quickly out of concern further...

According to news reports, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is prepared to have armed guards bar Roland Burris from the Senate floor, despite the fact that Burris has been legally appointed to Barack Obama’s open Senate seat by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. At the same time, Reid is praising the...

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has reversed course, and now wants to release to the Illinois House impeachment committee some wiretap evidence relating to the federal criminal case against Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Previously, Fitzgerald went so far as to ask the House committee not even to delve into areas covered by the...

The media is all atwitter over the decision of the Illinois House committee considering articles of impeachment against Gov. Rod Blagojevich to deny the request by Blagojevich’s attorneys to subpoena Obama aides Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett. The House decision comes at the request of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is...

Welcome to Legal Insurrection’s Official Guide to Blagojevich Blogs. What makes this “official”? The same thing that makes people think the Franklin Mint is related to the U.S. Mint, even though the commercial says it’s not.

These blogs have frequent posts or l...

Thanks to Illinois Review for cross-posting this piece.
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One of the highlights of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s criminal complaint against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, played out dramatically at Fitzgerald’s news conference, was that Blagojevich used extreme profanity to describe Barack Obama’s refusal to make a deal over the selection of a replacement...

Thanks to Open Line Blog and Capitol Fax for cross-posting this piece.
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On Friday, December 12, 2008, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a motion in the Illinois Supreme Court seeking emergency injunctive relief removing Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office, or alternatively, stripping Blagojevich of his executive powers. On December 17, 2008,...

Thanks to Illinois Review for cross-posting this piece.
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On December 19, 2008, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich went in front of the television cameras and boldly proclaimed that he had done nothing wrong, much less criminal. Blagojevich pledged to “fight” to his “last breadth,” invoking words similar to Winston Churchill’s “fight on the...