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Blagojevich Goes On Letterman To 'Appeal To The American People For Basic Fairness'
February 4, 2009 9:40 a.m. EST
Kris Alingod - AHN Contributor
New York, NY (AHN) - Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich resumed his media blitz on Tuesday, appearing on David Letterman and saying, "Maybe one day, you know, I'll wake up and they'll realize that this is just one big misunderstanding."
Blagojevich was impeached only hours after he gave what even critics said was a strong closing argument before the Illinois Senate last Thursday. State senators had heard him the previous day on federally wiretapped conversations allegedly trying to extort money from a racetrack operator.
All 59 state senators voted unanimously first to remove him and then bar him from holding public office.
The 52-year-old Democrat had ended 25 years of Republican residence at the state Executive Mansion in 2002 after winning a race against former Gov. George Ryan with a pledge to clean up the corruption that had plagued his predecessor. But his administration was soon at the center of a corruption investigation amid allegations that it had accepted political contributions from state contractors, a practice dubbed "pay to play."
When asked by Letterman Tuesday night about the corruption scandals that plagued Ryan and other predecessors such as Otto Kerner and Daniel Walker, Blagojevich replied, "Well, when you read it that way, it's obviously a dangerous thing and had I known that when I ran the first time, I wouldn't have run. I'd have stayed as a congressman. But I'd like your listeners to know and everybody in Illinois and anyone else who's listening that unlike those, I'll be vindicated."
"I did nothing wrong. And I'll have an opportunity to be able to go in a court to prove that I did nothing wrong," he added.
Letterman played a portion of one of four tapes played during Blagojevich' impeachment trial. In the recording, the former governor's brother Robert could be heard saying, "Talked to Lon, and he said Johnny Johnson's good for it...Ron's gonna talk to you about sensitivities legislatively tonight when he sees you. With regard to timing of all of this."
Blagojevich replies, "Right...Before the end of the year, though, right?"
The federal complaint against him says he tried to get $100,000 in campaign contributions from a racetrack operator, John Johnston, in return for for his signing into law of a bill directing a portion of casino revenues to the horse racing industry. He was allegedly looking to receive the campaign contributions before the end of the year because a new ethics law was scheduled to take effect on the first day of 2009. Illinois had passed a landmark ethics reform bill prohibiting political contributions from state contractors.
But Blagojevich told Letterman the recording "speaks for itself" and that "there's not a single criminal act" in his conversation. He said he had wanted to have all the tapes heard in their entirety during the impeachment trial so "the full context heard so people understand what this was about."
Letterman asked the former governor if he was "working on the jury pool for the spring trial... trying to prejudice a group of people" by giving TV interviews. He replied, "The trial is probably going to be a year from now, it's not anywhere near imminent, so what I'm doing here is I'm just doing the best I can to clear my name. I have daughters who have a right to know that their dad didn't do some of the things they're saying I did and I'm appealing to the American people to just give me the basic fairness that they would expect for themselves."
Blagojevich, who has yet to be indicted, was arrested on Dec. 9 on corruption allegations including trying to sell the Senate seat of President Barack Obama to bidders, including "Senate Candidate 5" whose associates had offered him $1.5 million in campaign money. He had boycotted his impeachment trial because he said it was "rigged." He spent the first day of his trial last week in New York defending himself in TV appearances on ABC's "The View" and CNN's "Larry King Live."
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