Blagojevich says recorded chatter on Senate seat was legal talk about ‘horse trading’

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Blagojevich: Senate talk was legal ‘horse trading’

CHICAGO — A defiant former Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich said federal prosecutors are trying to criminalize “political horse trading” during a post-corruption trial media tour of TV and radio interviews Friday.

“They are trying to do selective prosecution and criminalize what is political behavior, but in this particular case there was no behavior. There was strictly discussion and ideas being floated openly with lawyers and advisers with no intent whatsoever to commit any crimes,” Blagojevich told NBC’s “Today” show.

Prosecutors accused Blagojevich of trying to sell an appointment to President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat. He characterized those talks as legal political discussions and said the conversations recorded by federal investigators were simply brainstorming sessions.

“If they’re charging me with crimes, then they ought to charge every other politician in America,” Blagojevich said during an interview with Chicago’s WLS Radio on Friday. “Every time a congressman votes and trades his vote with another congressman for another vote they out to charge those people, too.”

A federal jury deadlocked Tuesday on all but one of 24 counts against Blagojevich, convicting him only of lying to federal agents. Jurors have said he would have been convicted of trying to sell or trade Obama’s old Senate seat had it not been for a lone holdout on the jury. Prosecutors have vowed to retry the case.

Blagojevich pointed out that prosecutors were unable to prove the corruption charges against him and that he escaped conviction on the most serious charges against him even without his side mounting a defense.

“These prosecutors threw everything at me but the kitchen sink, and on 23 corruption charges they failed to prove any of them, none of them,” he told WLS radio.

He dismissed the idea of accepting a plea deal to avoid an expensive retrial because money in his campaign fund that had been used to pay defense lawyers has been exhausted.

“The fact of the matter is I’m up against the giant Goliath and I take solace in the biblical story of David. In this case, I don’t have a slingshot but I do have the truth on my side,” Blagojevich told NBC.

Blagojevich’s media blitz is scheduled to continue with other interviews, including this weekend with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”