Members of the state House impeachment committee said Thursday they will do nothing that would interfere with the investigation by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. If Fitzgerald asks lawmakers not to interview certain witnesses, they will abide by that, they said.
"We do not want to get in the way of the United States attorney doing the work he does, and so whatever he says about where we can and can't go in our investigation, we are going to just simply say, `Fine, sir,'" said state Rep. Lou Lang, a suburban Chicago Democrat.
The committee would then probably emphasize some lower-profile allegations of misconduct against Blagojevich. Among them: defying the Legislature, failing to honor reporters' Freedom of Information requests, and trading state jobs and contracts for campaign contributions.
The latest complications, along with other developments, suggest it could be more difficult to dislodge Blagojevich than it appeared just a week ago. On Wednesday, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected a request to declare him unfit to serve, and Blagojevich's lawyer made it clear that the governor is not going down without a fight.