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The federal case against Rod Blagojevich for conspiring to collect kickbacks in exchange for granting an appointment to Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat continued. A committee of the Illinois House of Representatives was formed to investigate whether the governor deserved impeachment. CBS' Dean Reynolds heard Speaker Mike Madigan make the announcement and called his reaction to the prosecution case "as cold as the wind off the lake." Declared Madigan: "I have had an opportunity to get to know Mr Blagojevich over six years and so I was not surprised." NBC's Kevin Tibbles obtained a soundbite from Edward Genson, Blagojevich's expected defense lawyer: "The case that I have seen so far is significantly exaggerated." Genson has also defended rap singer R Kelly and billionaire Conrad Black against criminal charges.
US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating the contacts about the Senate seat between Blagojevich's staff and Obama's. So when the President-elect declared his own propriety--"This appalling set of circumstances that we have seen arise has nothing to do with my office"--he was unable to demonstrate it because the prosecutor asked him to wait for a week before divulging his records. ABC's George Stephanopoulos claimed, unconvincingly, that Fitzgerald was thereby helping Obama get "off the hook." NBC's Savannah Guthrie picked up on a Chicago Tribune report that Rahm Emanuel, the soon-to-be White House Chief of Staff, "had actually given a list to the governor's office of preferred candidates" for the Senate seat. "There is no allegation of wrongdoing or dealmaking by Emanuel."
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