I bet that in the recent wave of scandals, resignations, trips to Argentina, and fighting-quitters from Alaska, a lot of people had put old Rod Blagojevich out of their mind. Considering his insatiable appetite for national attention, I'm sure Blago was pretty bummed. But even he probably doesn't want this kind of attention. His old chief of staff is telling tales to prosecutors as part of a plea deal. From Reuters:
The former chief of staff for ousted Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich pleaded guilty on Wednesday and agreed to testify about attempts to cash in on the governor's power to fill a vacant U.S. Senate post.
John Harris, 47, became the first of six defendants indicted in the corruption case against Blagojevich to reach a plea agreement with prosecutors.
And from what Harris' attorney is saying, there's lots of meat these bones.
From the same Reuters article:
"Working for Governor Blagojevich was an extraordinarily difficult thing to do ... In many situations John tried to prevent Governor Blagojevich from doing things which were illegal," Harris' attorney, Terry Ekl, said after Judge James Zagel accepted Harris' guilty plea to one count of wire fraud.
Pretty damning stuff, and the article gets worse from there. With one person talking, there's a good chance others may strike deals of their own. And if the prosecutors have some decent evidence to go along with the testimony, we might be seeing some "$#%&ing golden" developments come out of this.
Hopefully this will help to thrust Blago back into the spotlight. It's important to keep all corrupt elected officials in the national consciousness. And it also shows a difference in the way that liberals and conservatives handle their own. When Rod Blagojevich refused to step down of his own accord, he was removed from office. When Elliot Spitzer was caught breaking the law, he resigned. But when Mark Sanford ditched town, left his responsibilities hanging, and spent government money to meet his "soul mate", he neither resigned nor was removed from office. Of course the precedent was already set by Larry Craig, David Vitter, et al. At least they're consistent.