Jurors in the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial arrive back in the courtroom Wednesday with some of the former governor’s more colorful comments still ringing in their ears.
“The whole world’s passing me by, and I’m stuck in this (expletive) job as governor now,” Blagojevich screams to advisors on one particularly spicy recording played late Tuesday. “Everybody’s passing me by, and I’m stuck!”
That phone call was secretly recorded Nov. 10, 2008, less than a week after Barack Obama’s historic election as president. In the call, Blagojevich makes clear to his advisers that he is green with envy and furious with their advice that he should give Obama his choice as Senator, without receiving anything in return.
“You guys are telling me I just gotta suck it up for two years and do nothing! Give this (expletive) his senator? (Expletive) him! For nothing? (Expletive) him!”
“I feel like I’m (expletive) my children,” Blagojevich laments, telling his staff he needs to get out of what he sees as a dead-end governor’s job, and, as he puts it, “step out and make some money.”
Earlier in the day, jurors heard the tape that made worldwide headlines at the time of his arrest.
“I’ve got this thing. And it’s (expletive) golden! And I’m just not giving it up, for (expletive) nothing!”
That recording was from a phone call between Blagojevich and his former deputy governor Doug Scofield. On another call, Scofield seems to agree with the governor that he should be able to get something in return for the senate pick.
“I think you should leverage it for whatever is most helpful to you,” Scofield said.
After court, the former Blagojevich adviser declined to comment specifically about that call, citing the ongoing proceedings. But he said his former boss was sometimes hard to oppose.
“He called persistently,” Scofield said. “And I think anybody who was close to him, even if you were trying very hard to give him good advice and to try and do the right thing, it could be difficult to have that guidance taken. So it was a difficult situation to be in.”
