SPRINGFIELD — A potentially troublesome new detail emerged about Roland Burris’ controversial U.S. Senate appointment Thursday after a state House panel voted unanimously to recommend Gov. Blagojevich be impeached.
For the first time, Burris indicated that he asked Blagojevich’s former chief of staff and college classmate, Lon Monk, to relay his interest in the Senate seat to the governor last July or September.
“If you’re close to the governor, you know, let him know I’m certainly interested in the seat,” Burris said he told Monk.
That testimony appears to differ from an affidavit Burris submitted to the impeachment panel this week in which he stated he spoke to no “representatives” of the governor about the Senate post prior to Dec. 26.
Federal prosecutors, who identified Monk as “Lobbyist 1” in their criminal complaint against Blagojevich, indicated they tapped Monk’s phone in November as Blagojevich moved to fill President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat.
Hold On!
Blago is a crook and Burris is a senile 71 year old man who once was a fairly popular politician in Illinois.
He certainly may have made an off-hand comment to a person close to the Governor over the summer that he would be interested in a Senate appointment.
Next to rooting for the Cubs, White Sox and Bears speculation about Obama’s Senate seat was a huge game in Illinois from the Convention on until the Election. I heard that Blago would appoint Lisa to get her out of his hair (no pun intended). I heard he would appoint himself. I heard the name of every Black politician in Illinois. The only name I did not hear was my own.
So Burris certainly might have let someone close to the Governor know he was interested without any evil intent. That is part of politics and certainly can be done by honest men and women.
Durbin says Senate will continue to refuse to seat Burris. But, he’s still hanging his hat on White’s refusal to sign the paperwork…
What’s he going to do if Burris plunks down a few bucks to get the certified copy of the state record, as the Supreme Court very explicitly suggested?
Or, if Burris really wants to make a stink and takes this to Federal court, are Durbin et al going to argue the Senate has the right to judge the appointment based on a missing signature (the requirement of which is itself based on a historic, but not Constitutionally required, Senate rule) or based on the entirety of the appointment process itself.
The latter is a much stronger Constitutional argument.
Stuart, I think Larry’s point is that Burris at first said in the affidavit that he had no contact and then during testimony said he did…
I agree – could’ve been a completely innocent off-hand remark to Monk and Burris certainly may not have known what Blago’s plans were regarding the “golden opportunity”, but why would Burris suddenly remember it while appearing in person but not remember it while writing out the affidavit?
At the least, it is something the media should be discussing, which is Larry’s other point.
I don’t agree that the media should be discussing the fact that an off-hand remark in any way contradicts the affidavit. Perhaps the problem is that Burris was questioned about this point by people who did not even appear to have a clue about why he was there and did not even listen to what he said.
It was just another part of the circus and to know somehow try to make it into a nefarious act strikes me as silly.
He didn’t mention my name either. Now he’s getting impeached. Coinkydink?
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It will be real intresting if the seat Franken without the official paperwork that is pending due to Coleman’s election contest and not seat Burris due to insufficient paperwork.
It will be real interesting if they put up any resistance at all to the Senate nomination of Gov. Quinn.
My prediction—The Burris appointment is referred to the Credentials committee. Blago is convicted and Pat Quinn appoints someone else. That appointment is signed by Jesse White.
The U.S. Senate confronted with two appointments for the seat selects the appointment that meets it legal requirements. Burris is out and in my opinion has no legal basis to challenge the Senate’s action.
But then again, I have a cynical and devious mind!
Stuart, I would step back a second and think about what Roland was doing talking to Lon about ‘excess work.’
Lon got work because people knew the Governor and him were tight and Lon could easily be the guy to approach about actual state work. So Roland knew the pay to play was going on and he went along with it to the point of approaching a lobbyist about work either with the administration or because of administration ties. That’s not terribly shocking in one sense, but it’s also one of those things that our outrage meters are often not strong enough for in Illinois.
Add to that no mention of the contact with Lon in the affadavitt and I think we ought to be very upset about Roland being nominated and not fully disclosing his contacts. Did Roland commit a crime–almost certainly not or even if there might be one in there, not one that could ever be indictable even (not even a ham sandwich), but it also wasn’t clean.
That’s not a guy of unimpeachable character or service. Add to it Roland was on the transition team in 2002/2003 and lobbyied for the horse racing group in 2003 and I think we have enough to block him.
And I think you are dead on as to what Reid and Durbin are trying to do.
===It will be real intresting if the seat Franken without the official paperwork that is pending due to Coleman’s election contest and not seat Burris due to insufficient paperwork.
I think the Senate has been pretty clear largely because Minnesota law requires the contest to largely be resolved first before Franken can be seated. So until the Governor and SecState sign off the local laws have to be satisfied and they aren’t fully yet–hence not much of a question and it has to wait.
Adding to what Arch wrote about MN Gov and SOS signing off … by state law, they cannot sign anything while the Coleman lawsuit is still pending. Delaying the inevitable? Yes. But laws are laws.
…By the by, Durbin packpedaled even further today now that White signed the record verifying that the appointment doc was a state record. Didn’t think it would stick…. If the Senate actually wanted to block Burris and show some spine they need to do it on Constitutional grounds (ie, “judging a return”), not tradition and chamber rules.