Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Rod Blagojevich pledged once again to call a who’s who list of Democratic politicians to the stand in his retrial – sort of.
“I am ready for Round 2,” Blagojevich told host Chris Wallace. “In the second round, we’re going to put a defense on I’m certain, in that particular case. We’re going to call witnesses like Rahm Emanuel, [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid, [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Bob] Menendez, Congressman [Jesse] Jackson [Jr.], Congressman [Jerry] Costello, and a host of other leading Democrats who were involved in this process to try to make a decision on who the next leader should be.”
When challenged by Wallace over the fact that he previously made big promises to call big witnesses, the former governor immediately back-stepped: “I’m going to do what I did in my first trial,” he said, “which is work with my lawyers and see how things unfold. I am prepared to call them as witnesses, like I was the first time, and I am eager to testify like I was the first time.”
In his first trial, Blagojevich’s side rested without calling anyone to the stand.
Responding to the government’s allegations and wiretapped phone conversations played in court that prosecutors say showed Blagojevich scheming to sell the Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama, the former govenor said, “I’m joking around in some of those conversations.” Pressed about that claim, he added, ” You don’t hear the whole conversation.”
In his first Sunday morning television interview since a jury was hung on 23 of the 24 counts against him, Blagojevich claimed that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald arrested him on Dec. 9, 2008, to stop a “political deal.”
“What the prosecution stopped was a political deal that Rahm Emanuel could have made happen,” Blagojevich said, “Congressman Costello could have been involved. Harry Reid is on the phone talking to me. Sen. Menendez is talking to me. They were helping me create a political deal to create jobs through public works, healthcare expansion, and a written promise not to raise taxes. And I went to bed that night thinking that deal was a day or two away – and this prosecutor arrested me to stop that deal.”
Again confronted by some of the tapes that were played in court, including the infamous one in which he referred to his Senate appointment opportunity as “f—ing golden,” Blagojevich responded:
“I was discussing with one of my advisers the possibility of political horse-trading that we might be able to have. I could have made myself a U.S. Senator. This could have been a job for me. I could have immediately made myself a senator, or my wife, or a friend – I had the power to do that. I was trying to consider a variety of options, consider every conceivable idea and, again, 98 percent of the tapes were not played in the court.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Blagojevich pushed back against former Deputy Gov. Bob Greenlee‘s testimony that he held up funding to Children’s Memorial Hospital until the hospital’s head, Patrick Magoon, helped him raise political donations. Blagojevich misstated on air that Greenlee had testified under immunity. In fact, Greenlee was one of the prosecution’s few witness who had not made any deals with prosecutors prior to his testimony.
Wallace, meanwhile, wrongly suggested in the interview that Blagojevich could have played whatever tapes he wanted if he presented defense. Judge James Zagel only permitted Blagojevich to use a handful of specific tapes prior to his decision not to call any witnesses.
About Blago’s claim that “you didn’t hear the whole conversation,” the defense would have been permitted on cross of the witness through whom the tape was presented to play additional parts that would show the context. You don’t really think Judge Zagel and Blago’s own defense counel would have allowed the prosecution to mislead the jury in the way he is claiming, do you? More Blago hot air and he’s being allowed to get away with it in these interviews.