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Blago Wants Fitzgerald Booted

Thursday, Jan 8, 2009 | Updated 10:30 PM CST

Getty Images / Win McNamee

Blagojevich's attorney contends that Patrick Fitzgerald violated the rules with pretrial publicity when he announced the charges against the governor at a news conference on Dec. 9

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's defense attorneys urged a federal judge on Thursday to throw Chicago's top federal prosecutor and all of his assistants out of the fraud and bribery case against the governor.

Federal prosecutors immediately retorted that the effort was "meritless."

Blagojevich's attorneys made the move as chances diminished that state lawmakers weighing his impeachment will ever get to see transcripts of the FBI's secretly made tapes of the governor's private conversations.

Chief defense counsel Edward Genson filed the motion to have U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald thrown off the case. He contended that Fitzgerald violated the rules with pretrial publicity at a Dec. 9 news conference announcing the charges against Blagojevich and his former chief of staff, John Harris.