Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Blagojevich Asks to Speak at His Impeachment Trial

After refusing to attend his impeachment trial for three days, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich has asked to speak to the Illinois State Senate tomorrow before they start their deliberations on whether to remove him from office. He will not testify or be cross-examined. He will only speak to address the Senate to respond to the prosecution's closing argument. I feel that Blagojevich is being really ridiculous. All this time, he has declared his impeachment trial unfair; yet all of a sudden, he wants to attend the trial to speak to the Senate. Also, he isn't willing to be questioned, yet was more than happy to answer any questions that the media had during his numerous interviews earlier this week. I feel like he's not handling this situation in a very professional manner, and that he's not taking this seriously.

However, another interesting fact from the impeachment trial is that the prosecution only called six of its thirteen scheduled witnesses. The prosecution claimed that they didn't want repetitive testimonies, yet some of the senators are a little unsettled by this. Getting rid of half of the witnesses speeds up the trial, but also withholds information that may be important in a trial as massive as this; therefore making the trial look politically motivated. How do you guys think eliminating half the witnesses will affect the trial?

1 comment:

G Chang said...

Eliminating half the witnesses is suspicious, but the prosecution is not throwing their entire case away. I feel that if they can adequately prove rod blagojevich's guiltyness then it shouldn't matter how many witnesses they use. And to add onto how idiotic Blagojevich is, he missed one of the days to film in the TV show "the View" in which he gave a pathetically bad performance. the thing that i want to ask is, why did anyone elect this guy?