Blago's Brother: Rod Should Take the Stand

By Chuck Sudo in News on Apr 18, 2011 1:30PM

Jury selection in the Rod Blagojevich retrial starts in two days. Former Governor Sound Bite took to Fox News Chicago last night to try to influence the jury pool plead his innocence. (Kudos to Larry Yellen for trying to get some candid answers out of Blagojevich, by the way.) Blagojevich stayed with his "play all the tapes" script, which conveniently omits that playing all the tapes is up to Judge James Zagel, and that Blago himself can determine how much of the tapes can be played if his defense team decides to put him on the stand. It didn't happen the first time around, but one man believes that, given the chance, Blagojevich could make a convincing defense - his brother Rob. "I can tell you Rod can be his best defense," Rob Blagojevich said.

Rob Blagojevich spoke to the Sun-Times about his brother's retrial and thinks Rod Blagojevich could make a convincing argument for reasonable doubt.

“There are a ton of tapes that are favorable to Rod that can make a definite reasonable doubt argument. He’s all over the place in the tapes. The only way that can get in is if Rod took the stand to defend himself. If he did that, I think he’d knock it out of the park.”

Rob Blagojevich's attorneys put him on the stand during the first trial and his testimony was a large reason (along with the narrower range of crimes he was charged with in comparison to his brother) why prosecutors decided not to retry him. If Rod Blagojevich's attorneys decide to put him on the stand, his brother said he's going to have to be prepared to explain sound bites like how President Obama's former Senate seat was "fucking golden," why he seemed to want members of the Tribune Editorial staff fired for negative op-eds, or why he thought he could leverage an ambassadorship or a job for wife Patti from filling the open Senate seat.

Rob Blagojevich also allowed the first trial did not bring the two brothers closer together and that, if he's called to testify in the retrial, he'll invoke the Fifth Amendment this time around and ask that jurors be referred to his testimony in the first trial. Now, here's video of Rod Blagojevich's tete a tete with Yellen last night.

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich goes on Trial Again Wednesday: MyFoxCHICAGO.com