Rod Blagojevich Plea: Still Not Guilty

Rod Blagojevich, the scandal plagued former Governor of Illinois who continues to face criminal charges for his alleged corruption, fighting back full steam against the charges set against him, and challenging the prosecutors to let the jury in his trial hear the full unedited audio recording that are being used against him in the case, made up of many phone conversations involving himself and many other figures.

The corruption charges have been a huge story, and continued a long and unfortunate tradition of high profile scandal in Illinois politics. Blagojevich faces charges of maintaining a scheme to work with his aides and advisers in setting up ways to get lucrative jobs or money in exchange for the Senate seat that opened up after OBama became president. Also Blago is accused of putting pressure on possible campaign contributors, to trade big donations for preferential treatment, including a prominent racetrack owner and a hospital executive.

Rod Blagojevich & Plea

Governor Rod Blagojevich pleaded not guilty this past Wednesday to a set of revised federal corruption charges, also going on to have challenged prosecutors with the insistence that they allow jurors to hear all of the FBI's full recordings of the former Governor's telephone conversations. Sounding unusually combative even by his theatrical standards after the brief hearing, Gov. Blagojevich told the gathered reporters he would not ask Judge James B. Zagel to prevent the jurors from hearing FBI wiretaps, in which the prosecutors reportedly say he schemed to either sell or trade President Obama's former Senate seat. "Let me cut right to the chase, today I'm laying down the gauntlet," Blagojevich loudly said. "I'm not going to hide behind my lawyers, nor will I hide behind technicalities in the law to try to block these tapes from being heard."

Rod Blagojevich & Plea