A Just Cause (25 page)

Following Morriss's brief testimony, Radogno asked again for a caucus. Cullerton objected. He wanted to move the trial along and felt that senate members could ask questions without strategizing. He asked the house prosecutor to confirm that they would conclude the presentation of witnesses that day to provide the senate a time frame. Ellis confirmed that after Professor Morriss, he would call one more witness, Auditor General Bill
Holland, whose testimony would take about an hour. Fitzgerald allowed the Republicans to caucus and asked Cullerton if the Democrats just wanted to stand at ease. The senate president requested a caucus (449–51).

After the recess, the majority of questions posed to Morriss by both Democrats and Republicans served merely to confirm or clarify his testimony. The only dissenting question came, again, from Rickey Hendon. He asked Morriss if there were “any other professionals who may disagree with your opinion.” Morriss's answer diminished the question: “Well, I'm certain there are a lot of professors who disagree with virtually all. There are a lot of professors. I'm not aware of any that disagree with this particular opinion, but we could probably find one,” he said (456). Morriss quickly finished answering general questions from the senators, and Fitzgerald told the house prosecutor to call his next witness.

Before Holland arrived at the witness stand, John Cullerton abruptly asked for recognition. The day before, Cullerton had spoken to the press and publicly challenged Blagojevich to appear before the senate. He was angry that the governor was appearing on national television accusing the legislature of being unfair and trying to railroad him out of office. Now the senate president delivered startling news: the governor had asked to appear before the senate and give a closing statement. Clayton Harris, the governor's acting chief of staff, had called Cullerton and conveyed the governor's request to appear.
³⁰
During the impeachment investigative hearings, Harris did not have any contact with house members or staff, but some senators, who knew him, found him approachable. Harris was a link to the governor, and there was a back-channel effort to prompt Blagojevich to resign or step aside. Resignation or stepping aside would end the senate trial, as the senate would not have to remove the governor from office. Blagojevich would have none of it, however, and Harris later said the governor “seemed oblivious to what was going on.”
³¹

Blagojevich had chosen to ignore the trial and did not file an appearance by the date set forth in the senate resolution. He had offered no defense, explanation, or counterarguments, but now he requested to make a statement. Cullerton wanted to make the conditions of the governor's request clear to the senate: Blagojevich requested that he not be under oath and that he not be subject to cross-examination by the prosecutor or questions from the senate. The senate chamber stirred. In the galleries, people turned and looked at each other with wonderment. The press was shocked and speculation was rampant. What would he say? Would he be
contrite or aggressive? Would he challenge individual senators? Would he resign?
³²

Cullerton, Andy Manar, and Eric Madiar hurriedly discussed what procedures and documents were necessary to grant the governor his request. Above all, they wanted to ensure that the senate remained in control of the process. Since he had ignored the provisions of the trial rules, they thought it best that the senate formally grant leave, giving its permission for the governor to appear. Cullerton informed the senate that he would ask leave of the body. Cognizant of the partisan tension that had emerged over the reduction of witnesses, Cullerton had called Radogno before making the announcement. She arose after the announcement and urged everyone to grant the governor leave to appear, should he appear. Many were not convinced that the governor would come. Some senators had been informed of the governor's request before Cullerton's announcement. Earlier, Senator Dale Righter, from downstate Mattoon, was handed a note from a staff member. He looked up and asked if the staffer was kidding.
³³

Finally, Auditor General Bill Holland took the witness stand. After being sworn in and invited to take his seat, he declined and requested to stand, an unusual request for most, but not for the self-assured, no-nonsense veteran bureaucrat. He had served as chief of staff for former senate president Phil Rock and was at home in the senate chamber. Holland approached his testimony before the senate with assurance and aggression. He was a witness for the prosecution and had six years' experience dealing with the Blagojevich administration. Kasper again assumed the role of prosecuting attorney. The testimony covered the three audits that had been presented to the house investigative committee, concerning the flu vaccine effort, the I-SaveRx program, and the Department of Central Management Services (CMS), the last of which had uncovered evidence of maladministration and possibly corruption related to the governor's efficiency initiatives.

It had been more than a month since the auditor general had testified before the house, and both Holland and the prosecution team had time to refine and rehearse the presentation. They were ready. They provided the senators with summaries of the audits, packets with charts and timelines, and documents that they referred to throughout the testimony. There could be little question regarding what had occurred. The senators knew the story. They were well aware of the flu vaccine fiasco, the mismanagement and incompetence of the governor's staff, and the $2.6 million that the state might have to pay for the undelivered flu vaccines. Concerning the
I-SaveRx program, the senate had watched as the governor ignored the rulings of the federal government, violated the law, and went ahead and instituted the program. In regard to the CMS audit, senators were also well aware of the shell game that had been made of the statute that authorized the efficiency initiatives. This was the third day of the trial and Holland was the last witness. The days had been long and intense, but the senators' faces seemed to show a relaxed sense of resolve. The situation no longer seemed surreal.

Kasper began with the flu vaccine incident. He took Holland through the history of the failed initiative. The prosecutor's questions were constructed to clearly establish the facts contained in the audit and provide a clear narrative. Through his questioning, Kasper attempted to reinforce that the governor was well aware that the importation of drugs was a violation of the law. A number of the governor's top aides had been involved, and Holland named names and implied that the governor had been aware of the program by emphasizing that the aides reported directly to the governor.

Holland made it a point to stress that the Illinois Procurement Code prohibited the comptroller from processing payments without a contract on file, and Kasper highlighted the special advocate's unfamiliarity with purchasing procedures by asking Holland about correspondence that Scott McKibbin, the state of Illinois' special advocate for prescription drugs, sent to the purchasing officer at the Department of Public Aid. In the correspondence, McKibbin admitted that he was unaware that a contract was necessary and further divulged that he had been told several times by the budget office and the deputy governor that the payment would be COD. Holland commented that he had never heard of anything being paid COD by the state.

An especially damning document was an e-mail the audit uncovered in which the special advocate acknowledged that the vaccines would never be delivered and suggested that they find a way to pay Ecosse for the
service
it performed. Holland said it was clear that the special advocate's suggestion to make the payment for services rather than tangible goods obfuscated what the state would be purchasing. Holland noted a December 21 e-mail back to McKibbin from the governor's attorney Mike Lurie, who stated that changing the wording to
services
“should make our lives in dealing with the Comptroller a heck of a lot easier in terms of getting these guys paid promptly in the absence of FDA approval.” Kasper noted that in the correspondence, the word
services
was in quotation marks (482–83). Kasper
asked Holland whether, at the time the e-mail was sent, Illinois officials knew that enough vaccines to meet the state's needs during the flu season had been found. Holland explained that in early December, the Centers for Disease Control indicated that it had found enough vaccines to service Illinois' priority population. Regardless, knowing the vaccines were not needed and would never be delivered, the state officials still entered into a contract with the UK-based company Ecosse on January 13. Ecosse was not paid, the company sued the state, and at the time of the impeachment trial the case was still pending before the Illinois Court of Claims.

Kasper next turned his attention to the audit of the I-SaveRx program. The audit revealed that the governor had clearly violated federal and state law by authorizing the importation of prescription drugs intended to be used by state employees and state retirees. Again, Kasper and Holland went through the results of the audit. Kasper asked Holland if the audit concluded that implementing the I-SaveRx program violated federal law. Holland answered yes. To add emphasis to the violation, Kasper asked if the program also violated state law, and again Holland answered firmly yes. Asked what the governor's reaction was to the conclusion of the audit, Holland reported that the governor issued a press release and expanded the program.

The final subject of Holland's testimony concerned the results of a routine audit of the Department of Central Management Services (CMS) and the so-called efficiency initiatives. As background, Holland essentially repeated the testimony he had given before the house investigating committee. He then offered an example that was sure to arouse an emotional reaction: veterans' services. The legislature had appropriated additional money for veterans' beds at the Manteno Veterans' Home, but $433,000 of that appropriation was spent on the procurement initiative without any savings being experienced by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

To clarify, Kasper asked Holland, “Why does your office believe that to be an issue or a problem?” and Holland answered that it was a problem because the General Assembly appropriates money to be spent in a certain way. The legislature is the branch of government responsible for directing how money should be spent. The Finance Act, passed by the legislature, provided for the efficiency initiatives program, but it established certain procedures for identifying efficiencies and billing from line items. CMS had abdicated its responsibility to the governor's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which made the final decision regarding which agencies
would be billed and how much they would be billed. In many instances agencies were overbilled; simply, they did not receive an equal benefit for the money. When asked the purpose of the administrative finagling between CMS and OMB, Holland was candid: “It was the intent to get a certain amount of money in place for their consultants that they would be paying” (499–502). The efficiency initiative provision was being administered like a shell game. Money was being removed from agencies and in turn was appropriated for discretionary purposes under the control of the governor's office.

The audit had also found another unusual practice: selected contractors were being allowed to participate in the development of requests for proposals (RFPs), which they would later be allowed to bid on. Participating in the development of an RFP would give an obvious advantage to a firm. Put simply, requirements of proposals could be tailored to a specific firm. Also unusual was that the governor's staff assisted agencies in drafting the RFP or sat on the selection committees that awarded the contracts. The ramifications of the handling of selection and awarding contracts did not have to be spelled out for those in the senate chamber. It seemed obvious. Selected contractors were chosen by the governor's office based not on qualifications or costs, but on connections. Holland gave the example of one firm, Illinois Property Asset Management (IPAM), which was allowed to extensively revise its proposal while consideration was being given to who would win the contract and ultimately was awarded a $25 million contract. A high-level IPAM official had dinner with a high-level CMS official shortly before the award was granted, and amazingly, IPAM was not even incorporated before the award was granted. Thus the contract was awarded to a company that did not exist. The audit also found that “there were tens of thousands of dollars of inappropriate expenditures made by IPAM and billed back to the State of Illinois” (506). Holland told the senate that CMS initially objected vehemently to the audit's conclusions that the departments under the governor had violated the Illinois Procurement Code and that the governor's office had violated the Finance Act, but eventually the agency agreed with all the findings.

As the final witness the prosecution presented to the senate, Holland had testified to factual deeds that had been uncovered, verified, and documented. His testimony was based on previous audits, conducted with transparent methodology and legal procedures. It was not based on conjecture, speculation, hypotheticals, or the possible results of future legal
proceedings. The facts were clear and indisputable. The senate took a short recess for the final time, and each party caucused to formulate questions.

Questions for Holland came from both parties. The tone of the questions was supportive of Holland's remarks and punitive regarding the actions of the Blagojevich administration. All were direct reiterations of Holland's testimony or were meant to reinforce what was contained in the audit reports. In one revealing question, Senator John Jones asked, “How many millions in state agencies' efficiency payments were made in this ‘money-laundering scheme' in fiscal year 2004?” Based on an audit of that year, Holland replied that “there were $137 million in efficiency payments made” (528). This amount had been billed from various agencies, and the audit identified a group of consultants who benefited from the movement of funds.