Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, is hardly known for spontaneous expressions of joy, at least in public. But he was surely elated by Monday’s conviction of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and probably more than a little relieved.
“A political corruption crime spree” is how Fitzgerald described the doings of Blagojevich after his arrest on Dec. 9, 2008. Fitzgerald went on to say how Lincoln must be turning over in his grave. To Fitzgerald, the case against Blagojevich must have seemed open and shut.
No it isn’t, the jurors at Blagojevich’s first trial said in effect. Last August, they found Blagojevich guilty of only one of 24 counts, that of lying to FBI investigators, and were unable to agree on the others. Despite the many damaging tape-recorded telephone conversations, in which Blagojevich came across as grasping and calculating at the very least, the jurors said afterward that the prosecutors had laid out a muddled case.
Until then, Fitzgerald had been best known for his successful pursuit of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Jr., chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, in the controversy over the leaking of a CIA officer’s name. Fitzgerald surely did not want to become even better known as the prosecutor who let a conniving governor get away, twice.
So it was back to the conference room for the Chicago prosecutors. How many strategy sessions Fitzgerald sat in on may not be known, but it’s a safe bet that his subordinates got his message: Learn from your mistakes; swallow your pride; simplify your case.
So prosecutors did, to good effect. The jurors in his second trial found Blagojevich guilty of 17 of 20 counts, acquitting him of one and unable to agree on just two. The conviction could bring a sentence of up to 20 years, although there has been speculation it will be closer to 10 to 15.
Fitzgerald, according to the Associated Press, tried to deflate any notion that what Blagojevich did amounted to politics as usual. What the former governor did, the prosecutor said, “is not a gray area…It’s a crime.”
One juror said that Blagojevich’s own testimony, in which he had to admit that he was “a convicted liar,” did not hurt him. Indeed, the jurors seemed to like Blagojevich, up to a point. “Because he was personable it made it hard to separate that from what we had to do as jurors,” said a woman on the panel, according to the WBEZ City Room blog.
The conviction may make Fitzgerald a better candidate to become FBI Director when Robert Mueller retires, in the opinion of some people who follow such political speculation. In any event, he is the bigger winner for the moment.
And who was the big loser? The obvious answer, perhaps too obvious, is Blagojevich, his wife and their daughters. “Patti and I obviously are very disappointed in the outcome,” he said. “I, frankly, am stunned. There’s not much left to say other than we want to get home to our little girls and talk to them and explain things to them and try to sort things out.”
The other big loser may have been the image of government in Illinois, which has taken a fair number of hits in recent years, with three former governors having gone to prison in just over three decades. As one juror put it, “I told my husband if he’s going to go into politics, he’s going to have to find a new wife.”
