Blagojevich defense motion requests releasing all evidence, All wiretaps, Prominent public figures recorded

“Why did the Illinois Senate Health & Human Services Committee, with Obama as chairman, create and push Bill 1332, “Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act,” early in 2003, which reduced the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, just prior to rigging by Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich?”…Citizen Wells

We apparently have only had access to about 2 percent of the wiretap evidence in the Blagojevich trial. In one of the wiretaps Blagojevich reveals the truth about Obama and Rezko.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fBy_kMBfWw]

All of the wiretap evidence should be released and put before the public. That is just what the Blagojevich defense is requesting.

From the Chicago Tribune February 17, 2011.

“Attorneys for impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich continued their barrage of pretrial motions with a new one Thursday that asks a federal judge to lift a court-ordered seal on all evidence, including hundreds of hours of secret FBI wiretap recordings.

The seven-page motion filed at the U.S. District Court in Chicago early Thursday — two months before Blagojevich’s corruption retrial is slated to start — argues the two-year-old order barring the public release of evidence impairs Blagojevich lawyers’ more than prosecutors.

“It is a fundamentally unfair playing field,” the motion says.

Blagojevich, 54, faces an April 20 retrial on 23 charges, including that he tried to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. He’s also accused of trying to shake down donors for campaign cash. At his first trial, jurors deadlocked on all but one count of lying to the FBI.

Of hundreds wiretap recordings, only a small percentage were played at the first trial. The rest are barred from release by the seal order, including recordings of conversations between Blagojevich or his aides with prominent public figures not accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

Thursday’s filing also accuses the government of selectively releasing out-of-context excerpts before the first trial that “poisoned the jury pool,” arguing that the seal — called a protective order — makes it impossible for the defense to respond.

“The protective order has only served to permit the government to present half-truths and distortions and has handicapped Blagojevich’s ability to fight back against false government allegations and set the record straight,” the motion says.

In the most notorious wiretap outtake released by prosecutors before the first trial, Blagojevich is heard saying about Obama’s vacated seat: “I’ve got this thing and it’s (bleepin’) golden. . . . I’m just not giving it up for (bleepin’) nothing.”

U.S. Attorney’s office spokeswoman Kim Nerheim declined any comment on Thursday’s motion.

One justification for the seal on evidence, the motion says, was the possibility that making the evidence public could interfere with other pending prosecutions. But the motion says it understands the investigation in the case has essentially ended.

The latest motion is the third within two weeks. Presiding Judge James Zagel had set Feb. 15 as a deadline to file all pretrial motions, but the defense this week asked for another few days. The next status hearing is Feb. 22, during which Zagel could accept or reject those motions.

Thursday’s filing says prosecutors played just 2 percent of “thousands” of recordings at Blagojevich’s first trial. It argues that prosecutors should now have no interest in keeping all the tapes under wraps.”

Read more:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-us-blagojevich-trial-motion,0,255807.story