Legal News

Trouble for ?Embattled? Blago ? House Votes 114-1 to Impeach

By Dan Slater

It’s been exactly a month since news broke that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had brought a criminal complaint against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Since then, the media has seized on the word “embattled” to describe Blago and his, well, his “battle” with Fitzgerald, the Illinois House and the U.S. Senate.

Today, Blago suffered a decisive defeat in the first battle. The Illinois House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach. Impeachment required just 60 votes. The final result was 114-1. A Senate trial will follow in coming days or weeks. Here’s an early WSJ report.

In a statement yesterday, Blago said he expected to be impeached by the House, saying the body’s proceedings were flawed and biased and did not follow the rules of law. But he promised to put up a fight in his Senate trial where “an actual judge will preside over the hearings.” There, the statement said, “the governor believes the outcome will be much different.”

In other news of embattled politicians, former Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, who left office Saturday, has decided not to pursue further appeals related to his misdemeanor conviction in an airport sex sting in Minneapolis. “It would have been a futile gesture,” his lawyer, Thomas M. Kelly, told the NYT.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 09, 2009 (boomark / email).