NWOTruth

During a speech at his impeachment trial in which he claimed that he had been "begging and pleading" to defend himself, the defiant Illinois governor indicted for allegedly attempting to sell President Obama’s former Senate seat to the highest bigger, argued that others were acting hypocritically.

If he’s impeached, then Senators Ted Kennedy (Dem-Mass) and John McCain (Rep-Ariz) and Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel also deserve to be fired, said the Democratic governor who ended his "boycott" to give the speech Thursday at his hearing.

Blagojevich referred to McCain and Kennedy during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday.

"They want to impeach me ‘cause I went to Canada in defiance of the FDA, in my first term, to get cheaper prescription medicines for our senior citizens so they can afford both their groceries and their medicine," Blagojevich told Maddow. "That’s an impeachable offense, the people reelected me on that. They were also impeach the governor of Wisconsin, the governor of Kansas, the governor of Vermont, and why not expel John McCain and Ted Kennedy too because they worked with me on the issue of re-importation of prescription drugs."

Emanuel held conversations with Blagojevich staffers about the open seat, and has said that nothing "inappropriate" was discussed, and US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald hasn’t indicated that any laws were broken by any Obama administration members. Blagojevich had wanted to call Emanuel to testify at his hearing, even if there was some "inconvenience" on display.

Blagojevich said, according to the Chicago Tribune’s report, "’If you’re impeaching me, then we need to impeach to governors of Wisconsin, of Kansas, of Vermont,’ because all of them also were interested in his Canadian drug plan. While we’re at it, Blagojevich said, they should ‘reach into the United States Senate and remove John McCain and Ted Kennedy’ because they supported the idea at the time."

The paper adds, "Blagojevich also said the Senate should demand that President Obama fire his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, because Emanuel ‘gave me the idea’ when he was a congressman from Illinois’ 5th District."

Blagojevich asked, "If you’re going to get rid of me, why do they get to stay in office?"

"You haven’t proved a crime, and you can’t because it didn’t happen," Blagojevich told senators, who were prepared to vote within hours on whether to remove him. "How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?"

Blagojevich added, "I am not resigning now because I have done nothing wrong."

"If Blagojevich is convicted, he will immediately be removed from office and replaced by Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn, a fellow Democrat," The AP reports. "No other Illinois governor has been impeached, let alone convicted in a Senate trial."

From the AP report:

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In a last-ditch effort to save his job, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich told senators at his impeachment trial that he’s done nothing wrong and the evidence doesn’t support kicking him out of office.

The Democratic governor repeated his frequent complaint that he wasn’t allowed to call witnesses who would have defended him against the criminal charges at the heart of the impeachment case.

Blagojevich did acknowledge that the truth of his actions might not be flattering in some cases. He referred to taped conversations played earlier in the Senate trial. The tapes appeared to show Blagojevich linking legislation to campaign contributions.

He said that’s something "all of us in politics do."

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Developing…

This video is from CNN.com, broadcast Jan. 29, 2009.

Raw Story | Thursday, January 29, 2009