A state panel recommended that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich be impeached for abuse of power, hours after his Senate pick told lawmakers he didn’t strike any agreement with the scandal-plagued governor to win the plumb position.
The state panel’s decision set the stage for the full House to take action yesterday and make Blagojevich the first governor impeached in Illinois history. If the House votes to impeach, the matter would then go to the state Senate for a trial.
The 21-member panel voted unanimously to recommend impeachment. Many called it “a sad day” for Illinois.
Blagojevich has denied any wrongdoing. Spokesman Lucio Guerrero did not immediately comment on the committee’s action, but said there was no chance the governor would quit before the full House vote yesterday. Blagojevich’s attorneys left the hearing before the committee voted.
Burris’ testimony under oath earlier in the day was one of the key requirements Senate Democrats set out for him as a condition of accepting his appointment, after initially balking at any choice by Blagojevich.
“There was nothing ... legal, personal or political exchanged for my appointment to this seat,” Roland Burris told an Illinois House committee investigating impeachment.
Burris declined to answer questions about whether he would have gone to federal authorities if he had been offered such a deal. He also declined to say whether Blagojevich should resign or be impeached, saying he has no control over those issues.
The governor picked Burris to fill US president-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat after being arrested on Dec. 9 on federal charges that include allegations he schemed to sell the seat to the highest bidder.
Burris, 71, said on Thursday he didn’t talk to Blagojevich about the Senate seat before the arrest, though he said he expressed interest to some “close friends.”
An early draft of the report released by the committee concluded the Democratic governor had abused his power.
“The citizens of this state must have confidence that their governor will faithfully serve the people and put their interests before his own,” the report read.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS