Gov: I'm still not a target of feds
BGA lawyer: Court filing seems to argue otherwise
Gov. Blagojevich has said -- repeatedly -- he doesn't view himself as a target in the ongoing federal corruption probe that has tarnished his tenure and left him with historically low voter-approval ratings.
So why is he arguing for the same rights as a criminal defendant in a court bid to block the release of most of the federal subpoenas his administration has received?
(Sun-Times file)
In an argument to the Illinois Appellate Court, Blagojevich's legal team cites a 27-year-old federal court ruling that says "potential" criminal defendants don't have to turn over grand jury subpoenas in civil litigation. That's one of the arguments the governor is making in an effort to overturn a Downstate judge's ruling that the Better Government Association, a Chicago watchdog group, is entitled to the subpoenas under Illinois' open-records law.
That's not to suggest the governor is a potential defendant in a criminal case, Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero says. His lawyers were just trying to show that past court rulings have found that subpoenas and other grand jury documents can be kept secret, Guerrero says.
The case Blagojevich's lawyers cited was a 1981 federal court ruling against Evanston Township High School District 202, which was trying to get subpoenas and other records that Admiral Heating & Ventilation Inc. possessed in connection with a federal grand jury that was investigating antitrust and bid-rigging violations in the piping construction industry. A federal judge ruled that Admiral didn't have to comply with the Evanston school district's request for the subpoenas, finding that grand jury secrecy rules would be "emasculated" if "potential" or "actual" defendants had to make grand jury records in their possession public.
Citing that ruling doesn't mean Blagojevich's lawyers meant the governor is a "potential" defendant, Guerrero says. The lawyers just "use that case to show subpoenas should be secret," he says.
An attorney for the BGA sees it as more significant than that, noting that Blagojevich recently acknowledged he has been interviewed twice by federal investigators and that it's widely known the feds have been looking into state hiring, contracting and political fund-raising under the governor.
"In the Admiral Heating case, the court extended the rule that prohibits prosecutors or grand jury members from disclosing information," says Donald Craven, the Springfield lawyer and open-records law expert who's representing the BGA. "The court extended the rule to prohibit defendants or potential defendants from disclosing that information, as well. It seems to me that the governor is now characterizing himself as a defendant or potential defendant, rather than just as a witness before the grand jury, in an effort to bring himself within the confines of this rule."
Not so, says Guerrero.
"This is just a deplorable manipulation of the facts," he says, "in an effort to make headlines and advance an illusory theory in the press that would overwhelmingly be thrown out in any court of law."
Dave McKinney