Blago: They're Drunks and Cheaters

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich  on Wednesday accused some of the Illinois lawmakers who removed him from office of cheating on their wives and drinking to excess.

“This is how the system in Springfield works,” Blagojevich explained during an interview with the Chicago-area radio station WSL-AM. “A bunch of these lawmakers go down to Springfield, nobody even knows who they are, they’re away from their families. It’s a whole different world down there, a bunch of them are cheating on their spouses, a lot of them drink in excess, very few of them know what’s going on.”

The governor recalled an occasion when he was approached by a “legislative leader” to mediate a spat between a lawmaker and his wife once she discovered he was cheating on her with his secretary.

“The wife found out and she wanted that secretary fired,” he said. “But this guy was in love with his secretary, so he goes to the legislative leader, they come to us, they want us to hire this woman so that we can keep that guy happy and, you know, then hope that they might work with us on some issues.”

The Illinois governor also said he saw the same kind of behavior on Capitol Hill when he arrived in Washington as a congressman in 1997.

“It’s not just state government. I saw that as a congressman in Washington,” he said. “It’s part of the human dynamic and I don’t want to be too judgmental, but these same guys get up and they get holier-than-thou on their soapboxes and there they are doing that sort of thing, promoting that kind of thing.

“Yeah, people are human and they make mistakes, but cheating on your wife and sleeping with your secretary, that’s the wrong thing to do.”

Copyright POLIT - Politico
Contact Us