8/20/10 Rod Blagojevich Post Trial Today Show Interview - Clip 2 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Yang, thank you very much. Former
2. 0:01Governor Rob Lgoyovich is here for an
3. 0:03exclusive interview. Governor, good
4. 0:04morning to you. Good morning. Let's
5. 0:05start by talking about where things
6. 0:07stand today. You were once one of the
7. 0:08most powerful politicians in this
8. 0:10country, the governor of Illinois. At
9. 0:12one point, you had ambitions to become
10. 0:13president. As of today, you're out of a
11. 0:16job. Um, your political future looks
12. 0:18like it is dead. And you are now a
13. 0:20convicted felon. Do you take any
14. 0:22responsibility with what's become of
15. 0:24you? Well, Meredith, let me point out
16. 0:26that the government when they target you
17. 0:28and prosecutors want to get you and they
18. 0:30spent six years spending tens of
19. 0:31millions of dollars of taxpayer money
20. 0:33and someone had asked this prosecutor
21. 0:34exactly how much money did he spend of
22. 0:36the taxpayer money and he failed failed
23. 0:38to convict me of any corruption charges.
24. 0:40There's a false statement they allege I
25. 0:42made 5 years ago. That isn't true. I did
26. 0:44not lie to the FBI. We're going to
27. 0:45appeal did convict you. Well, we're
28. 0:47going to appeal that and and we and I
29. 0:49should point out we didn't put a defense
30. 0:51on. We my lawyers were very certain that
31. 0:53the government failed to prove any
32. 0:54corruption. So you take no
33. 0:56responsibility then governor for
34. 0:57anything that's happened to you. Well I
35. 0:59would say that looking back if I could
36. 1:01change some things uh what would change
37. 1:04certain people that I put faith in and
38. 1:05trusted u advisers and different people
39. 1:08but you have to understand less than 2%
40. 1:11of the tapes were played in court. The
41. 1:13government put their best case on and
42. 1:14failed to prove any corruption. The Wall
43. 1:17Street Journal just came out in an
44. 1:18editorial suggesting the prosecutor
45. 1:20should be fired or should resign because
46. 1:22it's been an abuse of his power. The
47. 1:24Wall uh the You were very defined about
48. 1:26this. And right after the trial, you
49. 1:27said this was a persecution, not a
50. 1:29prosecution. And and you also said that
51. 1:31the jury agreed with you that the
52. 1:32government did not prove its case, but
53. 1:34the foreman of the jury was actually
54. 1:36with us the next day. He said that was
55. 1:38not true. He said the only reason you
56. 1:39were not convicted of trying to sell
57. 1:40that Senate seat was because of one lone
58. 1:43juror. And in fact, he voted to convict
59. 1:45you on all counts. Another juror said
60. 1:47she's glad there's going to be a a
61. 1:48retrial. A third juror said, quote, here
62. 1:51if they do retry him, he might be in
63. 1:52trouble. He was lucky. Given that, do
64. 1:55you want to gamble on another trial or
65. 1:58would you like to make some sort of a
66. 1:59plea deal? No, I'm absolutely very
67. 2:01determined to to uh continue to seek
68. 2:03vindication, full vindication. So, you
69. 2:05would never accept a plea deal? I have
70. 2:06done absolutely nothing wrong. This is a
71. 2:08persecution by a prosecutor who for six
72. 2:10years have targeted me. He has spent
73. 2:12tens of millions of dollars trying to
74. 2:14get me. The question people should be
75. 2:16asking and you should be asking in the
76. 2:17media is what happened on the day before
77. 2:19they came to my house at 6:00 in the
78. 2:20morning and arrested me a sitting
79. 2:22governor. What was I talking about in
80. 2:24December the 8th and December the 7th? I
81. 2:25want to challenge this prosecutor. Let
82. 2:27me challenge this prosecutor the
83. 2:29prosecutor to release all the evidence
84. 2:31and every tape, every transcript that
85. 2:34happened the day before I was arrested,
86. 2:352 days before I was arrested, a week
87. 2:37before I was arrested, 10 days before I
88. 2:38was arrested. This trial we put no
89. 2:41defense on and they failed to prove any.
90. 2:43But is it sobering when you see that the
91. 2:44the main charge that you tried to sell
92. 2:46that US Senate seat 11 to1 in favor of
93. 2:49convicting you? That has got to be
94. 2:50sobering for you. The fact of the matter
95. 2:52is we didn't challenge it. There was no
96. 2:54case that that that explained those
97. 2:56conversations and let me point this out.
98. 2:58The very thing that they're trying to uh
99. 3:00convict me of political horse trading
100. 3:02and in this case it was merely
101. 3:03discussing possibilities with lawyers,
102. 3:06political adviserss. And remember the
103. 3:09remissary sent to me by the president
104. 3:11himself. Political horse trading. This
105. 3:13is what they're trying to now
106. 3:14criminalize. These prosecutors who by
107. 3:17them act in a way where they're making
108. 3:19deals with convicted felons. And in
109. 3:22exchange for their testimony, these
110. 3:23felons come in and say what these
111. 3:24prosecutors want to say. The very thing
112. 3:26they're charging me with, they ought to
113. 3:28charge themselves with and they ought to
114. 3:30add an additional count of hypocrisy.
115. 3:32Not to mention the language.
116. 3:35Sounds like you're saying this thing is
117. 3:36so golden, I'm not going to give it
118. 3:39away. Again, there's a new federal judge
119. 3:41today because reportedly a congressman
120. 3:44voted for President Obama's healthcare
121. 3:45plan and in what I was just saying
122. 3:47because congressman's brother became a
123. 3:49federal judge. That sort of politics is
124. 3:51how our country operates. So that's
125. 3:53business as usual in Chicago.
126. 3:57Scratch mine. You pay me, I'll give you
127. 3:58something. There's a US congressman who
128. 4:00voted for President Obama's healthcare
129. 4:02plan whose brother now became a federal
130. 4:03judge. political horse trading. They are
131. 4:05trying to do selective prosecution and
132. 4:08and criminalize what is political
133. 4:10behavior. But in this particular case,
134. 4:12there was no behavior. There was
135. 4:13strictly discussion and ideas being
136. 4:14floated openly with lawyers and advisers
137. 4:17with no intent.
138. 4:19Okay. Yeah.