Blago's Second Trial Begins

New York Times reports:

Rod R. Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois who is charged with trying to sell the United States Senate seat once held by President Obama, talked and talked and talked. But he never really sealed a deal, criminal or otherwise.

So went the defense presented by Mr. Blagojevich’s lawyers as his second federal corruption trial opened on Monday, more than eight months after a first trial ended with a jury divided on all but one count in a thick tangle of criminal charges against him.

Aaron Goldstein, Mr. Blagojevich’s lawyer, told this new set of jurors that federal authorities had never discovered a pot of money in Mr. Blagojevich’s possession after his arrest in 2008. They had never found a flush bank account. “They found nothing because there is nothing,” Mr. Goldstein said.

“In the end, you will have nothing,” he said.

In many ways, Mr. Blagojevich’s new trial felt like a muted, less circuslike replay of the last one: same courtroom, same judge, same prosecutors, same hair. But this trial — with only a shrunken group of curious residents here to touch Mr. Blagojevich or seek his autograph — is expected to be more challenging for Mr. Blagojevich, not least of all because of the way prosecutors have scaled back and simplified their case.

Prosecutors have dropped several of the most complicated charges — racketeering, in particular — and have reduced their case to 20 counts, including attempted extortion and bribery.