XCALIDEM
Well-Known Member
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This guy must be smoking something.... 
December 19, 2008
Blagojevich Wants to Defend With Election Funds
By CATRIN EINHORN and SHARON OTTERMAN
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois plans to ask that he be permitted to use campaign funds to defend himself against federal corruption charges, a lawyer who represents the head of the embattled governor’s campaign fund said Thursday.
Michael D. Ettinger, the lawyer for Mr. Blagojevich’s brother, Robert, who is chairman of the campaign fund, The Friends of Blagojevich, said that the governor would make the request to the judge assigned to his case when and if he is formally indicted.
“There’s a real question about how he will be able to pay for his defense,” Mr. Ettinger said.
The decision to try to use campaign funds arose on Thursday after the state attorney general rejected a request by the governor to use state funds to pay for his impeachment defense.
Mr. Blagojevich may also be blocked from using campaign funds to pay for his defense. Mr. Ettinger said the fund has received a letter from the office of United States Patrick J. Fitzgerald warning that federal prosecutors would seek the forfeiture of the campaign contributions, and advising that the fund should not spend, dissipate, or conceal any of its resources. There was $3.6 million in the fund as of June 30, according to public filings.
Mr. Blagojevich, the two-term Democratic governor, was arrested last week on federal charges of conspiracy and soliciting bribes. He was accused, among other things, of extorting contributions to the campaign fund as a quid pro quo for jobs and contracts with the state of Illinois.
On wiretaps, Governor Blagojevich is quoted by federal investigators bemoaning his personal financial difficulties. At one point, he is said to have told his chief of staff, John Harris, that his financial situation is one of his main considerations in seeking a candidate to fill the vacant Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama.
A spokesman for the United States attorney’s office, Randall Samborn, declined to comment on reports that prosecutors were seeking to freeze the campaign fund.
The discussion about the governor’s legal fees came as a House panel met for the third day to consider the impeachment of Governor Blagojevich. The majority of the day’s proceedings consisted of testimony from government officials and expert witnesses over whether they believed the governor had overstepped his authority during his six years on the job.
Earlier on Thursday, State Attorney General Lisa Madigan denied a request by the lawyer for the governor, Ed Genson, to have the state pay for the governor’s impeachment defense. In a letter, Ms. Madigan’s office said that the governor is not entitled to taxpayer-financed legal representation because the impeachment hearings are not a court action.
Mr. Genson contended that the reimbursement was warranted because the charges against the governor and the impeachment investigation were touched off while carrying out state business. Ms. Madigan strongly disagreed.
"It is absurd to suggest that taxpayers must finance the defense of a criminal action against Governor Blagojevich, who is accused of corruptly betraying the public trust for personal and financial gain," her office said in the letter.
Any hope that the question of the governor’s alleged transgressions would be quickly resolved ended on Wednesday when the Illinois Supreme Court denied an emergency request from Ms. Madigan to consider removing Mr. Blagojevich from office. The court also denied a motion for a temporary restraining order that would have immediately stripped Mr. Blagojevich of many of his powers, including the authority to appoint a senator.
The ruling stirred consternation among some lawmakers here, many of whom had seen the request to the court as the fastest, straightest route to Mr. Blagojevich’s departure, even if a bit of a long shot.
The court’s decision provoked new questions about how and when the Senate seat might now be filled as Republican lawmakers again called for a special election. It also increased the pressure on the House committee that is conducting the impeachment investigation. The other alternative is for Mr,. Blagojevich to step down, for which he has shown no inclination.
Mr. Genson, a fiery criminal defense lawyer well-known in Illinois after more than four decades in Chicago courtrooms, has been a contentious presence in the impeachment proceedings. He described the lawmakers’ efforts as a “real witch hunt” and offered several pointed objections to the state’s vague standards for impeachment, the lawmakers’ use of the federal criminal complaint against the governor as evidence in their inquiry, and at least three lawmakers who he said could not be impartial.
“This is Alice in Wonderland,” Mr. Genson said on Wednesday. On Thursday, he sat quietly through most of the proceedings.
Lawmakers seemed unfazed by all of Mr. Genson’s critiques of the impeachment process and said they would move forward.
“The governor’s lawyer did a pretty good job of throwing up dust, but I don’t know that he did a good enough job to make either the members of the committee, nor the people of Illinois watching him on their television screens, decide that the governor is as innocent as a newborn lamb,” Representative Barbara Flynn Currie, the chairwoman of the 21-member impeachment committee, said after the hearing ended for the day. “The standards that govern what we are about are very different from those that govern in a criminal trial.”
Monica Davey contributed reporting from Chicago.
