by Scott Creighton
Impeachment is a form of indictment. Once the “indictment” is passed, it then goes to the other legislative body, the senate, for the actual “trial”.
Impeachment does not necessarily result in removal from office, but rather is only a legal statement of charges, parallel to an indictment in criminal law. Wiki
The articles of impeachment are the set of charges drafted against a public official to initiate the impeachment process. Wiki
The “articles of impeachment”, like the 35 presented by Dennis Kucinich against George W. Bush, or the 6 brought against Dick Cheney, are the legal basis for bringing the indictment or the impeachment proceeding. They are like the “crimes” or the “charges” brought against the person being impeached. Without them, what is the foundation of the impeachment? Without “charges” what is the foundation of bringing someone to trial? And is no one looking at the fact that the man spearheading this “chargeless’ impeachment proceeding is the father of someone who was Rahm Emanuel’s pick for Obama’s senate seat?
Michael Madigan, the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and the father of Lisa Madigan, the Illinois State Attorney General, formed a commission to impeach Gov. Blagojevich on Dec. 15th 2007. He was hell-bent on the impeachment, and now his committee is bringing the impeachment to a vote on the floor of the Illinois House, without one single article of impeachment.
It doesn’t include a formal article of impeachment laying out the charges against Blagojevich. That could be written separately. CBS News
His daughter, Lisa Madigan, attempted to get the Gov removed from office in a deplorable manner by asking the State Supreme Court to declare him “disabled” because of the unindicted charges brought against him. They rejected her motion without even hearing her ridiculous argument.
A spokesman said Wednesday that the court rejected the challenge without comment. CBS News
Rod Blagojevich’s choice to fill that senate seat is Roland Burris, but he was held up by the Illinois Secretary of State, Mr. White, not signing off on the commission. Well, Dianne Feinstein of the US Senate Rules Committee says that isn’t an obstacle and Burris should be accepted. It remains to be seen what will happen, but we are now finding out, that Lisa Madigan influenced White decision there as well. The Madigan clan have their greedy finger-prints all over this case, and no one is talking about it.
White, along with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, have made that argument in writing to the state Supreme Court, stating in the filing that White’s signature is not required by law, but rather only recommended by a Senate rule. ABC News
Now it turns out, that she was on both Rahm Emanuel’s and Harry Reid’s “short lists” to fill the senate seat vacated by Obama, and that Gov. Blagojevich didn’t pick her.
Emanuel then had “about four” telephone conversations with Blagojevich’s then chief of staff, John Harris, where a list of possible candidates that Obama “considered to be highly qualified” was discussed.
Those candidates included state Comptroller Dan Hynes, Tammy Duckworth, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., and — in later conversations — Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Cheryle Jackson. ABC NEWS
Since Lisa Madigan’s daddy formed the committee to “review” the Gov. Blagojevich’s impeachment issue, the Obama investigation has turned up the fact that no one from the Blagojevich team ever attempted to get anything in exchange for the appointment… and, US Attorney Fitzgerald has not only told the committee that he didn’t want them using the 76 page criminal complaint in their proceedings, but has also asked for and received a 90 day extension on bringing his case before a Grand Jury for indictment.
“Mr. Harris did not make any effort to extract a personal benefit for the Governor in any of these conversations,” the report states. “There was no discussion of a cabinet position, of 501c(4), of a private sector position or of any other personal benefit to the Governor in exchange for the Senate appointment.” ABC NEWS
In a letter released earlier this week, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald asked the impeachment committee not to delve into the criminal charges against Blagojevich, saying interviewing current or former members of Blagojevich’s staff might jeopardize his criminal investigation. CBS News
Meaning that everything about the Blagojevich case is falling apart, and we clearly see a conflict of interest between Speaker Madigan, his daughter Lisa’s potential senate seat, and the impeachment process of Gov. Blagojevich moving forard without any articles of impeachment to base it on.
Now, Speaker Madigan has the gall to bring forward an impeachment proceeding… WITH ABSOLUTELY NO ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT… no “charges” of wrong doing…
This hijacking should be on every front page in the country. They are attempting to steal a Senate Seat, right out from underneath Roland Burris, in broad daylight, with absolutely zero evidence to support the impeachment.
Filed under: Obama Cabinet, Obama™, Rod Blagojevich | Tagged: Blagojevich impeachment, Blagojevich witch hunt, Rod Blagojevich
If they get away with this without Obama calling them down for it then we know exactly how dangerous Obama will be.
Can Blagojevich have an attorney to speak for him in front of congress? Couldn’t he sue congress for illegal preceedings?
The longer this goes on, the more I think Burris is the right man for that seat.
He’s got some powerful people pissed off, so maybe it means he’s not corruptible and doesn’t have enough skeletons in his closet to be used against him during crucial votes.
Just watched CNN smear Burris–again– with a guilt by association thing by claiming that someone that Burris knows contributed to Blago and gave Blago’s wife a job.
The MSM is trying to cut Burris to death with a 1,000 cuts, but so far, the dude is standing tall.
And that Burris contributed $4,500 dollars to Blago’s campaigns over FOUR years.
$4,500?
Isn’t that same amount of bail money Blago had to post?
$4,500 is chump change compared to the hundreds of millions Big Pharma and Wall Street uses to bribe, oops, excuse me, “donate” to the campaign funds of our reps each year, why not investigate that?
It looks like the Illinois lawmakers doing the bidding of Emanuel are trying to smear Burris to the point he’ll get disgusted and resign.
I hope not.
We need more like Burris in the US Senate.
Will,
Can the Guv. argue effectively that without specific chrges or indictments there is no grounds for his impeachments and removal and therefore he cannot be removed from office?
Can the legislature there decide to remove the Guv. without any stated indictment but just on heresay and innuendo? Would that be a greater taint of corruption than anything that the Guv. has as yet been charged with?
If the case against the Guv. is falling apart, then will that be a black mark on Fitzgerald who so far has been painted as an incorruptable Att. Gen.?
Has it been noted by anyone else that the people who are trying to get rid of the Guv. were also on Obama’s list of preferences? You suggest it’s pretty clear there is a conflict of interest with the Madigans. This aspect just seems to present the possibility of some future flowering of this scandle into more and more directions.
Hi Steve;
I am not a lawyer, but I would have to say that any successful impeachment (indictment) must contain articles of impeachment (charges) in order for that impeachment to be considered legitimate and not simply a witch-hunt or a political prosecution.
I don’t know if they can remove him or not. But that might not be the ploy. It seems that Reid is now agreeing with Dianne Feinstein in as much as he is saying that the Sec. of State not signing the commission doesn’t matter, but he is now looking to try to bring this to some kind of “special election” from the people of Illinois… and I think the impeachment just might be the leverage they try to justify that load of crap with.
The BS criminal complaint is falling apart and the Obama investigation yielded nothing by way of Blago “trying to sell the senate seat”, and Blago made a good choice for the position (even though they are trying to smear Burris in the MSM for ridiculous things), so the tide is turning dramatically in Blago’s favor. Well, if they can get the BS impeachment railroaded through the House, they have a window of opportunity to get Blago’s pick nixed before the Senate takes up the investigation. They can use the impeachment, no matter how shady it is, as a means to smear Blago and to justify withholding his pick. It’s timing that they are looking at.
You should look up Mr. Fitzgerald’s recent history. When I first starting writing about this case on Dec. 9th, I thought Patrick had an impecable reputation as well, but as it turns out, his record is pretty tarnished. When he opened his mouth and said Blago was the most horrific corruption case he had seen, and the criminal complaint contained all of 2 charges (neither of them “selling the senate seat”) I knew something was wrong. He was not supposed to comment like that in the first place and in the second place, there was only $5,000 worth of bail set on this case. Not an “earth shattering” case at least in the eyes of the courts.
We need to start talking about the Madigan’s interests in this case. A good man, Roland Burris, is going to be kept from his legitimate appointment in the US Senate. That should bother everyone. Aside from the fact that Rahm is probably behind this, and we don’t need another artificial check’s and balances facade in government right now, no matter what political party we have.
But if this is Rahm in the background running this smear campaign, he may in fact be laying the groundwork for another impeachment in the future… Obama’s. So we have to be careful here not to cut off our nose to spite our face. So yes, I think this could easily turn into something much more costly in the very near future. Good point.
Gee, what a cathartic report. Evacuating enough, eh?!
Will,
I thought this was interesting this morning, off of a post at “Think Progress,”
“…As MSNBC pointed out, “You don’t have to be guilty of committing a crime to be impeached. You just have to be accused of abusing your power or unable or unfit to serve.”…”
By this standard, many people who have not been impeached surely should have been
Wow, Steve… what a find. not that unexpected though considering Obama’s transition team is being run by John Podesta, the guy who runs The Center for American Progress (Think Progress’ mother site and payer of the bills). Good find.
Amazing how that works isn’t it? On a “progressive” site, they justify the removal of a democrat who may not be guilty of any crimes, and they don’t even want to cover impeachment issues against Bush and Cheney, who are certainly guilty of war crimes.
again, good find Steve.
One of the charges being leveled against Blago is that he tried to make it easier for Illinois citizens to be able to buy their meds from Canada.
What a monster!
Make meds affordable for those too poor to pay the sky high prices in US pharmacies?
The man needs to be tarred and feathered.
Hey greg, thanks for the laugh…..