Bye-bye, Blago

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: January 29, 2009

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich brought fire and brimstone to the Illinois Senate this morning, delivering a rambling, 45-minute diatribe/personal plea/pseudo-rebuttal to charges that he misused his authority as the state’s chief executive.

But it wasn’t enough: Senators just voted unanimously Gov. Rod Blagojevich in his impeachment trial and disqualify him from ever holding office in the state again.

Blago, who has maintained his innocence from the start, had complained that he was unable to call witnesses in his defense and that senators had only heard pieces of the wiretapped conversations that were at the heart of the allegations. Blagojevich pleaded with senators and appealed to their “sense of fairness” to either exonerate him or rewrite the rules of the impeachment trial to allow him to call those witnesses.

No dice.

Yes ... yes ... yes ... yes ... the votes rolled in, one by one. No one—not one single senator, not even those who had expressed concern about the process—voted to acquit him.

Blago becomes the eighth governor in U.S. history to be removed from office.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, he’s all yours.