Blago Trial Finale

Photo by: The Judiciary Report

Around noon today final remarks were finished and the jury began deliberation over the trial of former Illinios Governor Rod Blagojevich. Blago was impeached from office in January 2009, but he has for the past couple months been facing extensive criminal charges: 24 various felony counts including racketeering, wire faud, extortion and bribery. The most infamous of these charges covers the attempts by Blago to auction off Obama's vacant Senate seat to the bidder offering the highest campaign contribution or cushiest new job.

Throughout the impeachment and following criminal trial Blago has proclaiming his innocence and working to woo the public. On AM radio show he has worked to redirect the finger around towards a corrupt state government claiming to the audience that he has been "illegally and unethically hijacked from office."

The son of working class immigrants, Blago always worked in his campaign to portray himself to voters as a hard working David aiming to shakeup the Chicago's Machine's Goliath. He seems to have worked to carry this message for his campaign for Governor into a campaign for innocence. Yet at the same time Blago has made some rather questionable PR manuevers. Apart from appearing on Celebrity Apprentice (in which he was fired despite a bond of bad hairstyle preference between Trump and himself) Blago appeared at a street festival as an Elvis impersonater alongside a Fabio look-a-like.

Whether Blago will be facing jail time or if he's cries of persecution and innocence will be valued is kind of up for grabs. The FBI tapings of Blago's phone calls are pretty damning, but there is some issue over whether he can actually be said as doing something wrong. While he appeared to very adamantly solicit bribes, no deal was ever actually sealed for the selling of the Senate seat. What the tapes do seem to show is a rather disturbing insight into a man who really probably should have held office.