Blagojevich Trial, Minnesota Recount Case Begin

JUDY WOODRUFF:

Finally tonight, a governor on trial. As the Illinois State Senate began the impeachment trial of Rod Blagojevich, the governor himself took his case to the American public. Today he made the rounds on the morning television talk shows in New York.

Here he is on ABC's "Good Morning America."

GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH, D.-Ill.:

Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? How is it that you can make a couple of allegations, take some conversations completely out of context, the whole story is not told and then force somebody to admit to something he didn't do, and then deny that person who's a sitting governor a chance to have due process, to bring witnesses, and to defend himself?

This impeachment trial gives me an opportunity to be able to disprove those allegations, show my innocence. And I can do it sooner rather than later, if the Senate allows me to bring witnesses in.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

For more on the Blagojevich story, as well as the latest on the Minnesota and New York senate seats, we're joined by Amy Walter, editor-in-chief of the Hotline, National Journal's political daily.

So, Amy, how is it, first of all, that he is boycotting his own trial in the Illinois Senate?

AMY WALTER, editor-in-chief, The Hotline: Right, he has said that he doesn't think — he thinks the whole thing is rigged and that there's no reason then for him to go and present his case since the outcome is pretty much decided.

And, quite frankly, when you see that the House voted to impeach him on a vote of 114-1 — the one person being his sister-in-law — it doesn't look very good for him there.

But the case, really, is this. The reality is this is not a criminal case that you bring before the Senate. It is a political case that the governor and his — that the folks who are working against him, his opponents are saying that they have to make, right? So this is not a traditional criminal case.

And the reality is, since a political case, the governor doesn't have any political capital as that vote in the House showed. And, furthermore, you know, the issue is really tilted toward the governor. This whole process is actually tilted toward a defendant, because you need a two-thirds vote in the Senate in order to convict him, to impeach him, and that means you really only need to find 20, 21 votes.

That shouldn't be that hard for a sitting governor who has any political capital at all to do some horse-trading or find a way to find some votes here and there and stop it. But the reality is he has zero votes. Nobody's with him.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

So little support, you're saying, in Illinois.

AMY WALTER:

Exactly. Exactly.