World | USA
Illinois sees corruption of the most brazen kind
As the noose tightened, month by month, Rod Blagojevich, Governor of Illinois, seemed to know he was in trouble.
- Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
- Published: 23:39 December 10, 2008
Chicago: As the noose tightened, month by month, Rod Blagojevich, Governor of Illinois, seemed to know he was in trouble.
"You gotta be careful how you express that and assume everybody's listening. The whole world's listening," Blagojevich said in a conversation secretly taped by the FBI. "I would do it in person," he said to someone else. "I would not do it on the phone."
Yet the governor kept talking on the telephone, and the FBI kept listening. In hours of captured conversations, he continued to spin out one outlandish idea after another, all of them designed to line his pockets or preserve his political career, and all of them illegal, the criminal complaint against him alleges.
Among the allegations: The Democratic governor, whose popularity slumped to 13 per cent in a recent poll, used his clout to try to have newspaper editorial writers fired. He demanded campaign contributions in return for political favours.
And when the law said he alone could appoint a successor to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the US Senate, Blagojevich saw it as a "golden" moneymaking chance, saying, "I'm just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing."
Blagojevich - elected to clean up the mess left by his now-jailed Republican predecessor - was led away from his home in handcuffs on Tuesday to face influence-peddling charges.
With his arrest, Illinois, which has proudly laid claim to the next president of the US, will still be known for something else: undeniable corruption.
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