CHICAGO  – The Chicago Tribune reports that a relative of a key figure in the state’s corruption scandal got admitted to the University of Illinois despite sub-par credentials – after then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich put in a good word for him.

The newspaper did not identify the applicant Friday except to say he was related to Tony Rezko, a Blagojevich fundraiser convicted of corruption last year. Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office in January.

The relative was accepted after the school’s president wrote in an e-mail that Blagojevich “would like to see” him admitted. That was despite an e-mail from an admissions officer saying his qualifications were “actually pretty low.”

A university spokesman, Thomas Hardy, confirms the school keeps a list of applicants of special interest to lawmakers. But he says questionable admissions are rare.

CHICAGO  – A federal judge said Tuesday he would allow the U.S. Senate Ethics Committee to have a federal wiretap of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s brother having a phone conversation with U.S. Sen. Roland Burris.

The conversation between Burris and the former governor’s brother occurred while Blagojevich was still governor and before he named Burris to President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat.

Burris has been under intense scrutiny because of the circumstances of his appointment by the disgraced former governor and for changing his story multiple times about whether he promised anything in exchange for the appointment.

The Senate Ethics Committee has begun a preliminary investigation. The Sangamon County State’s Attorney is determining whether perjury charges are warranted.

U.S. District Chief Judge James F. Holderman on Tuesday unsealed a government motion requesting permission to release to the ethics committee wiretap material gathered in the Blagojevich investigation.

The material consists of a conversation between Burris and the impeached governor’s brother, businessman Robert Blagojevich, who headed the Friends of Rod Blagojevich campaign fund.

Rod Blagojevich is charged with scheming to trade or sell the seat and using the political muscle of his office to squeeze people for campaign money. Robert Blagojevich is under indictment along with his brother and a number of other members of the ousted governor’s inner circle. Both brothers deny wrongdoing.

Holderman told attorneys for Robert Blagojevich, Burris and the government that “the material will be released to the Senate shortly.”

Robert Blagojevich attorney Michael Ettinger and Burris attorney Timothy Wright did not object to the government’s motion.

“I think that the senator has told the truth every time,” Wright said. He acknowledged that his client had told the impeachment committee that he didn’t volunteer to raise money for Blagojevich in exchange for the seat.

“And we think he has been perfectly consistent,” Wright said.

Burris spokesman Jim O’Connor said the senator would cooperate and “welcomes this as a chance for more transparency and the opportunity for the full truth to come out.”

The Sangamon County state’s attorney’s office said it had no comment on the status of its review of possible perjury charges against Burris.

Burris testified before the House Committee that impeached Blagojevich in January that he didn’t promise anything in exchange for the Senate seat.

Blagojevich appointed Burris just before being kicked out of office.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to seat Burris if he gave a full accounting of his Blagojevich contacts to the Illinois House committee that was considering impeachment of the governor.

Burris gave the committee an affidavit denying any discussion with Blagojevich’s aides before being offered the seat. But when he testified, Burris acknowledged talking to one of Blagojevich’s friends and informal advisers about it.

Then, after he was sworn in, Burris released another affidavit acknowledging he had talked to several Blagojevich advisers about his interest in the seat. Soon after, talking to reporters, he said he had been asked to help raise campaign money for the governor and that he tried to find people willing to donate but failed.

Then he stopped answering questions, letting others speak on his behalf.

CHICAGO  – Faced with a looming deadline to indict ousted Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich, federal prosecutors in Chicago say there will be a court filing about a “significant criminal matter.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office said it plans to issue a press release and court filing later Thursday. It did not say what case the filing pertained to.

The office has been working on the indictment against Blagojevich that’s expected as early as Thursday.

The 52-year-old is accused of scheming to sell or trade President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat.

Blagojevich’s publicist says he’s not in Chicago. The family is apparently at Walt Disney World in Florida.

CHICAGO – Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich filled in as a radio talk show host Wednesday, using the mike to complain he was “hijacked” from office and blasting the new governor’s plans for an income tax increase.

Blagojevich had a two-hour gig on WLS-AM, filling in on the “Don Wade & Roma Morning Show” because the regular hosts are off this week.

Blagojevich, thrown out of office in January and still facing potential criminal charges, is a talk show novice and he acknowledged it, stumbling over his title and quipping that hosting was “harder than being governor.”

But he quickly got more comfortable as the show wore on. He talked on the air with CNN’s D. L. Hughley, ABC News’ Ann Compton and Second City performers who do a comedy spoof on him.

Blagojevich used the show as a platform to criticize the lawmakers who kicked him out of office after his arrest on federal corruption charges. He suggested the lawmakers really just wanted him out of the way so they could raise the income tax.

“I was hijacked from office. … It was a political fix and I predicted that,” Blagojevich said.

His successor, Gov. Pat Quinn, wants to increase the income tax rate by 50 percent to fix an $11.5 billion deficit. Blagojevich said it’s the worst thing Illinois could do because it would hurt
small businesses.

He took comments from callers who seemed to agree, and wound up the show by thanking listeners “for giving me a chance to have been your governor for six years. … I wish I was still there so I could fight for you.”

Federal prosecutors have until April 7 to get a grand jury indictment or seek more time. Said Blagojevich: “I’m going to trust in the truth, and as it says in the Bible, the truth shall set you free.”

The former governor also took a moment to plug the book he’s writing, but admitted it isn’t coming easily. He joked about being only a few pages into it.

WASHINGTON – Sen. Roland Burris is refusing to resign despite a suggestion from fellow Illinois senator Dick Durbin to do so. Burris also is refusing to say whether he’ll run for the seat in 2010.

Burris was appointed by disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and driven from office after he was accused of trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.
 
Burris repeatedly changed his story about how he was appointed. He is facing calls for his resignation after he admitted trying to raise money for Blagojevich. Burris has said he did nothing improper. He refused to comment after his meeting with Durbin.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Now that Rod Blagojevich’s scandal-ridden tenure as governor is over, Gov. Pat Quinn said Friday he’s ready to get to work and “mend the flaws” in state government.

“This is a time for governance and reform. Politics – we can do that next year,” Quinn told WLS Radio’s “The Don and Roma Morning Show.”

The 60-year-old Democrat was elevated to Illinois’ chief executive on Thursday when the Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to convict Blagojevich of abuse of power, automatically ousting the second-term Democrat. In a second, identical vote, lawmakers further barred Blagojevich from ever holding public office in the state again.

Quinn said he would be busy on his first full day as governor and that his job is to “mend the flaws” in state government. He pledged to work with lawmakers and other state officials as a team to get the job done. Among the challenges he faces is a state budget deficit of more than $3 billion.

Blagojevich, accused of trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, became the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed by impeachment.

On Thursday, he addressed his Senate impeachment trial and offered familiar lines: He was innocent. The trial rules were unfair. His goal always was to help people.

But senators were unswayed.

“He failed the test of character. He is beneath the dignity of the state of Illinois. He is no longer worthy to be our governor,” said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from suburban Chicago.

Blagojevich’s troubles are not over. Federal prosecutors are drawing up an indictment against him on corruption charges.

Outside his Chicago home Thursday night, Blagojevich vowed to “keep fighting to clear my name,” and added: “Give me a chance to show you that I haven’t let you down.”
  
Blagojevich, 52, had boycotted the first three days of the impeachment trial, calling the proceedings a kangaroo court. But on Thursday, he went before the Senate to fight for his job, delivering a 47-minute plea that was, by turns, defiant, humble and sentimental.

“You haven’t proved a crime, and you can’t because it didn’t happen,” Blagojevich (pronounced blah-GOY’-uh-vich) told lawmakers. “How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?”

The verdict brought to an end what one lawmaker branded “the freak show” in Illinois. Over the past few weeks, Blagojevich found himself isolated, with almost the entire political establishment lined up against him. The crisis paralyzed state government and made Blagojevich and his helmet of lush, dark hair a punchline from coast to coast.

Many ordinary Illinoisans were glad to see him go.

“It’s very embarrassing. I think it’s a shame that with our city and Illinois, everybody thinks we’re all corrupt,” Gene Ciepierski, 54, said after watching the trial’s conclusion on a TV at Chicago’s beloved Billy Goat Tavern. “To think he would do something like that, it hurts more than anything.”
 
In a solemn scene, more than 30 lawmakers rose one by one on the Senate floor to accuse Blagojevich of abusing his office and embarrassing the state. They denounced him as a hypocrite, saying he cynically tried to enrich himself and then posed as the brave protector of the poor and “wrapped himself in the constitution.”

Blagojevich did not stick around to hear the vote. He took a state plane back to Chicago.

He did, however, use his last day in office to grant clemency to a prominent Chicago real estate developer and a former drug dealer, just hours before the vote to oust him.

The verdict capped a head-spinning string of developments that began with his arrest by the FBI on Dec. 9. Federal prosecutors had been investigating Blagojevich’s administration for years, and some of his closest cronies already have been convicted.

The most spectacular allegation was that Blagojevich had been caught on wiretaps scheming to sell an appointment to Obama’s Senate seat for campaign cash or a plum job for himself or his wife.

“I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden, and I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I’m not gonna do it,” he was quoted as saying on a government wiretap.

Sen. James Meeks, a Chicago Democrat, mocked Blagojevich during debate: “We have this thing called impeachment and it’s bleeping golden and we’ve used it the right way.”

Prosecutors also said Blagojevich illegally pressured people to make campaign contributions and tried to get editorial writers fired from the Chicago Tribune for badmouthing him in print.
 
Obama himself, fresh from his historic election victory, was forced to look into the matter and issued a report concluding that no one in his inner circle had done anything wrong.

“Today ends a painful episode for Illinois,” the president said in a Thursday night statement. “For months, the state had been crippled by a crisis of leadership. Now that cloud has lifted.”

Even as lawmakers were deciding whether to launch an impeachment, Blagojevich defied the political establishment by appointing a former Illinois attorney general, Roland Burris, to the very Senate seat he had been accused of trying to sell. Top Democrats on Capitol Hill eventually backed down and seated Burris.

As his trial got under way, Blagojevich launched a media blitz, rushing from one TV studio to another in New York to proclaim his innocence. He likened himself to the hero of a Frank Capra movie and to a cowboy in the hands of a Wild West lynch mob.

The impeachment case included not only the criminal charges against Blagojevich, but allegations he broke the law when it came to hiring state workers, expanded a health care program without legislative approval and spent $2.6 million on flu vaccine that went to waste. The 118-member House twice voted to impeach him, both times with only one “no” vote.

Seven other U.S. governors have been removed by impeachment, the most recent being Arizona’s Evan Mecham in 1988. Illinois never before impeached a governor, despite its long and rich history of graft.

By Thursday night, Blagojevich’s name and picture had disappeared from the state’s official Web site. Instead, an unobtrusive “Pat Quinn, Governor” was in the upper right corner.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Gov. Rod Blagojevich is asking senators at his impeachment trial how they can vote him out of office based on criminal charges that haven’t been proven.

Blagojevich’s arrest last month on corruption charges has played prominently at his impeachment trial.
 
Federal prosecutors allege he schemed to sell President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat for campaign cash or a plum job for himself.

Blagojevich denies any wrongdoing. There is no trial date set in the criminal case.

The governor is telling senators that an FBI agent reading the allegations to lawmakers – as happened this week – does not amount to proving the charges.
 
Blagojevich says he’s “begging” for senators to let him prove his innocence.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  – Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he isn’t giving up hope and he’ll keep fighting to hold on to his job.

The embattled Democrat spoke Thursday as he arrived at the state Capitol in Springfield to give his closing statement at his impeachment trial.

Blagojevich wouldn’t give a hint about what he plans to tell senators, who’ll likely vote later in the day to oust him from office.

The governor says he’s philosophical about his circumstances but acknowledged there’s a feeling sadness about what could be his final time walking into the Capitol as governor.

He says he hopes he gets a “fair shot” before the senators. He arrived at the Capitol as impeachment prosecutor David Ellis was giving his closing statement on the Senate floor.