Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been taken into Federal custody.
Authorities in Chicago have arrested Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich on federal charges.
U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman Randall Samborn says both Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were arrested Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors have investigated Blagojevich’s administration for at least three years. They’ve been looking at everything from how he hired people for state jobs to the actions of friends and contributors.
Chalk up another politician who’s fallen into Patrick Fitzgerald’s sights. It’s unclear right now what, if any, charges are being brought though. Fitzgerald will be holding a press conference in a couple of hours, though, so we’ll no doubt know more then.
(via Steve Benen)
UPDATE: You can read the indictment here. It looks like what was the primary mover for the arrest was the fact that Blagojevich was looking for a little quid pro quo in exchange for Obama’s vacant Senate seat.
UPDATE (Dave Schuler)
I’ve been covering this over at my place. Check the Tribune coverage. They’re “live-blogging” it.
This comes as little surprise, indeed, the only surprise is that it took so long.
UPDATE (James Joyner): Josh Marshall nails it:
Even setting aside the primordial level of corruption of trying to sell the senate seat of the President-elect of the United States, I never fail to be amazed at the brazenness and stupidity of some political crooks. I mean, I think everyone involved in politics or interested in political corruption in the country had to know that Blagojevich’s phones were tapped and probably his offices were bugged, and that Pat Fitzgerald had him under the craziest level of scrutiny. And he tries to sell the senate seat with that hanging over his head? That’s simply amazing. I guess you could say he’s just a traditionalist, trying to keep up heritage of Chicago machine politics. But with some of these characters, it must just be pathological.
UPDATE (Dave Schuler)
Josh is understating it. Just within my lifetime three Illinois governors have been convicted of corruption and served time in prison after serving their terms as governor. It’s not just a few bad apples here, not just “political crooks”. The system itself is corrupt.
UPDATE (Dave Schuler)
Over at my place I explain why it’s urgently necessary for the Illinois legislature to impeach Gov. Blagojevich now and remove him from office.
