Rod Blagojevich’s Day in Court Arrives

It was all such a glorious pre-trial. Nineteen months of attempts to delay ended Wednesday for Rod Blagojevich, who goes on trial beginning today for, among other things, allegedly trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.

Yesterday morning, his last plea with Judge James Zagel to stall was rebuffed, and today comes the rather droll, but not insignificant, process of jury selection in his corruption trial.

In the 541 days since the FBI arrested Blagojevich outside his Chicago home on corruption charges, the former Illinois governor has given scads of media interviews, a good college try on “Celebrity Apprentice,” a talk about politics and ethics at Northwestern University and a “manhood” challenge to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. In short, he has done everything he could do outside the courtroom to change his image.

For the next several months, in downtown Chicago, there will be much to parse.

THE POLITICAL FALLOUT

Republicans are anticipating – if not salivating – at the prospects of a months-long trial that will feature a cast of almost exclusively Democratic names. “It has the potential to be the ultimate political clown-car spectacle at a time when voters are absolutely fed up with the current political system and its players,” says Republican consultant Kevin Madden.

In Illinois, the trial could become a political football in the race for Obama’s old Senate seat. For Republican Representative Mark Kirk, who is vying for the seat, this week provides a much-desired opportunity to escape the bruising headlines over his misrepresentation of his military record in public remarks and on campaign literature. Eric Adelstein, a Chicago-based Democratic media strategist who is advising Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias, calls the Blagojevich trial a “sad spectacle that only increases people’s already high cynicism and low opinion of career politicians.”

In Washington, political and legal watchers don’t believe the case will ultimately reach the doors of the Oval Office, even though it might touch some in the White House and others on Capitol Hill. Blagojevich’s attorneys have subpoenaed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. In April, Judge Zagel ruled against Blagojevich’s attorneys’ request to subpoena Obama. One person who is expected to take the stand, however, is Illinois Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. A criminal complaint alleges that supporters of the congressman were willing to fork over $1.5 million in exchange for being appointed to Obama’s former seat. “Bottom line,” says Joel Levin, a former assistant U.S. Attorney, “is that no political figure needs or wants to be anywhere near that courtroom, given all the allegations and the transactions that are going to be discussed.”

THE SPECTACLE

Unlike the tight-lipped prosecution, Blagojevich’s lawyers have spoken quite openly. Part of the reason is because the act of speaking out, if even indelicately, constitutes a good portion of that strategy. The idea, say lawyers outside the case, is to create a backdrop of inanity by which all comments the governor makes are taken with a grain of salt and a shrug of the shoulder. Those would include certain secretly wiretapped conversations that, according to the U.S. Attorney, went like: “I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden, and I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing.”

Blagojevich attorney Sam Adam Jr., who has limited experience in federal trials but holds a stunning record defending clients in Cook County court, has talked of trials being a kind of performance art, where the best show wins. He boasted to the Chicago Sun-Times that the prosecution viewed its opposition as “a joke,” suggesting that this was playing right into the defense’s hand. “One of the interesting questions is there going to be a daily, mini press conference that Blagojevich is going to have, in which he gives his review of the day?” said Levin. “Is that going to continue throughout the trial and at some point will the judge clamp down?”

While jury selection is rarely the most thrilling part of a trial, Levine says it will be interesting to see how many jurors have observed Blagojevich on TV and the comments on the pages of the New Yorker, where he suggested he’d be happier to be a resident of Manhattan, and Esquire, where he claimed to be “blacker than Obama.” Presumably, those are the jurors the defense wants.

Unclear is whether these were pre-trial shenanigans or do they continue once the gavel drops?

“One of the interesting questions is there going to be a daily, mini press conference that Blagojevich is going to have, in which he gives his review of the day?” said Levine. “Is that going to continue throughout the trial and at some point will the judge clamp down?”

This isn’t the first time Zagel and Blagojevich have faced each other. Last year, Zagel declined Blagojevich’s request to appear on the show, “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here,” because it was being filmed in Puerto Rico.

WILL THE INTEREST SUSTAIN?

In the last week, Blagojevich’s Florida-based publicity agent, Glenn Selig, has been on the phone non-stop. That’s not surprising for the start of the case. But will the interest remain?

In terms of the national media’s interest, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd compares this trial to that of former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, who was convicted of extortion and racketeering in 2001 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The media interest in former Illinois Governor George Ryan’s trial was fairly well contained within the borders of Illinois, as it lacked both the spectacle and national political implications of Blagojevich’s.

Despite Blagojevich’s best efforts to elicit the attention of the national media – with his various television appearances on CBS’s “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “The View,” Bill O’Reilly, and others – Todd is circumspect that the trial, no matter its theatrical value, will be able to sustain the mainstream media’s interest.

“We were all mesmerized during that dead news period between December and January,” Todd said.

He added that he doesn’t expect Washington reporters to pester White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs with briefing room questions about allegations that come up in the trial.

Selig, meanwhile, feels that he can handle the publicity from Florida, which may indicate how much attention there will be.

“It really all depends on how it all goes and what the flow of traffic is like,” Selig said. “We have been able to do what we have been able to do from afar, so we may continue to do a lot of it that way. I would like to be there, if for no other reason, than to just be there for him on a personal level.”