Robert Blagojevich was crouched under the bathroom sink in his son’s condominium Thursday morning when his iPhone phone beeped. The time was 11:01. There was a text message from his attorney, Michael Ettinger.
This is when the 10,000-pound weight was lifted off the shoulders of the brother of Illinois’ ex-governor.
“Reid just told me they’re dismissing [your case] right now,” read the text from Ettinger, referring to Reid Schar, the lead federal prosecutor in the public corruption trial of Robert and his brother, Rod Blagojevich.
“Wow!” Robert Blagojevich typed back. “Call me about the media.”
Blagojevich handed the phone to his wife, Julie, who immediately started crying.
“I said, ‘Hold on a minute,’” Blagojevich recalled Thursday afternoon in an interview with the Chicago News Cooperative. “‘Let’s make sure that he got it right, let’s wait for his call.’” Ettinger called within five minutes with the good news.
The day before, Blagojevich said, prosecutors had proposed a deal to Ettinger, which they declined.
“We were hopeful by that overture,” said Blagojevich, “but we had other overtures in the past, early on when I was first indicted, that were kind of hopeful. But it never came to fruition. So we kind of thought it might have been a false alarm yesterday, and didn’t take it that seriously.”
Sitting in a chair of his living room with a Diet Coke in his hands, a relieved Blagojevich talked about the past two years and the future. He expects to be back to Chicago when the trial starts, supporting his estranged brother and possibly testifying if subpoenaed.
He detailed to the CNC what was on his mind after the weight was lifted off his shoulders.
On the Infamous Starbucks phone call to Rod Blagojevich:
“Julie and I went back [to Starbucks] trying to recapture it. When this all came down on me I could not remember that conversation with my brother. When I read the complaint and the indictment, and until we heard the tapes and started reading transcriptions, I couldn’t remember ever having that conversation.
“We do have a receipt from Starbucks. We bought a gift card there for my assistant at the [Friends of Blagojevich] office and Julie had called Visa. It was clear on my Visa statement that I was at Starbucks and we bought a gift card and then we called to find out what time it was. Well, we know it was during the time I was there, 2:43 [p.m.]. We did this within the last eight months. Subsequent to that, then, when we got back here in May for the trial, we went there trying to, you know, ‘What did we remember?’ I don’t remember being there, because it was so tangential to everything that was going on. It was not important.
“There was no way I would be conspiring in a damn coffee shop with my damn brother on a telephone at Starbucks. You say you just don’t conspire that way – I don’t conspire – but it was just absurd. So to me it was always very absurd that I was in this to begin with.”
On his relationship with Chicago:
“It was a horrible feeling to know, for the year and a half that proceeded this, that we were going to go to Chicago for a trial in May. I did everything I could do to get psyched up. Of course I had no choice and faced it. But I didn’t want to be here, totally soured to the Cubs, totally soured to the city. It took the joy out of city for us. But I got to tell you; it’s been a 180-degree reversal, not because of today, but because of our experience here with the people who reached out to us…. My love affair is reengaged with Chicago.”
On the media:
“The strategy was, it was a disappointment I wasn’t acquitted. It was important to reach the next jury pool. We had a 9-3 vote in my favor, so we came very close. And that was with a jury pool that had been polluted by [U.S. Attorney] Patrick Fitzgerald‘s press conference. So now that we had a trial, it was a good time for me to make a case, be interviewed, explain my situation, and emote whatever I could emote.
“I was definitely not trying to take a page from Rod’s book, because he and I are totally different books.
“I am not a media guy. We now have calls to go on TV tonight, TV in the morning, TV whenever I want to. And I don’t want that. We’ll get done today and I just want to get back to my life.”
On testifying in Rod Blagojevich’s retrial:
“I’ll do what I have to do. If I am subpoenaed to testify, I have had some practice at it. I know what it takes to prepare, not that it is going to be as crucial at this juncture as it was when I had to. But I’ll do what I have to.”
On writing a book:
“It had been suggested to me before I came up here by a friend of mine that it might help you if you just keep a log of the trial. It might help you mentally process things and that is exactly what I did. It helped me put my frustrations, my outrage, my observations of the jury and the prosecutors and the courtroom and the judge on paper. Whether I’ll ever share that with anyone, I don’t know. Others have asked me about a book. I am flattered anybody would think that I have something to say, but I don’t know if I do have anything to say.
“I am not going to just try to cash in. I do want to make up for what I lost financially, but I have got to do a thorough assessment of that and figure out how we’ll do that. And if there’s a message to a book I am convinced somebody is going to want to read on a mass level, that is something we’ll have to deal with. But nobody is coming to me saying, ‘ I am dying to read your book.’”
On his trial routine:
“Back in December 2008, my son [Alex] and I sat down in my home in Nashville and I said, ‘Look, I’ve got to put a business plan together.’ This is the biggest challenge in my life, and I’ve got to get down on paper a plan on how I am going to deal with this. I’ve got a business I’ve got to deal with, I’ve got to stay fit, I’ve got to get ready for the trial, I need to obviously deal with family and friends. We’ve got a plan, it is a family heirloom now, just a two-page thing written out for me in December of 2008 that has guided me throughout this entire thing.
“I would get up at 5:30 in the morning and either go to this workout place here, called Body Fit, or I would run in the neighborhood. I would shower. Alex would make me, every day, scrambled eggs, turkey bacon and grits. And then he would drive me to work.
“That plan is what gave me something to control and structure for a life that had basically surrendered itself to the government.”
On supporting his brother:
“My plan is to support my brother. I won’t be up here every day, I won’t be in court every day, but my plan is to support my brother.”
On the government:
“Early on, I pled the fifth, and that was the smartest thing I ever did…[Ettinger] cautioned me early on, ‘Do not talk to the government, they are not your friend.’ And I always thought they were. The distinction I made today, and really not thought about it much until today: The question was asked of me, ‘you’ve served your country in the military, you have done things charitably, whatever, been a decent citizen, have you lost faith in your government?’ I haven’t lost faith in the institution of my government, but I have lost faith in some of the people who represent government. Because they are the ones who ultimately represent us and when they have unbridled power to what they want to do, and not consider the consequences to the people that they are targeting, we should all as citizens be concerned and warned, and do everything we can to not squander any more of our civil liberties.”
On a future political career:
“I’m not a politician, but a citizen, a concerned citizen who has an opinion based on experience now, that before I took for granted.”
