CHICAGO — The lieutenant governor of Illinois said Sunday he is certain scandal- plagued Gov. Rod Blagojevich will be out of office in less than two months.
Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, speaking from Chicago, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” he believes Blagojevich will be impeached and convicted by the Illinois Legislature by Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial birthday celebration Feb. 12.
Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on charges alleging he schemed to swap President- elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat for profit, shook down a hospital executive for campaign donations and other wrongdoings. The governor has declared his innocence and says he will fight the charges.
Quinn described Blagojevich as “isolated” in his decisionmaking and surrounded by a “tight palace guard” that “tells him what he wants to hear and not what he needs to know.”
He needs to know “he’s disgraced himself; he’s disgraced the people of Illinois,” Quinn said. He said he hasn’t spoken to Blagojevich since August 2007.
Quinn would become governor if Blagojevich leaves office. He said he would call for a special election to fill Obama’s seat.
The Illinois House committee investigating the possibility of impeachment is scheduled to meet again today. The panel rejected a request from the governor’s lawyer to subpoena two top advisers to Obama, the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, said Saturday.
If the House approves impeaching Blagojevich, the Senate would hold a trial. It would take a two-thirds vote to remove him from office.
