Dan Rutherford

SPRINGFIELD--Attorney General Lisa Madigan rejected late Wednesday a request by Gov. Blagojevich to have taxpayers pay for his defense in impeachment proceedings and at his criminal trial.

The governor's lawyer, Edward Genson, contended that Madigan, as the state's chief law enforcement officer, has a duty to represent the governor. But she can't do so because of a conflict of interest related to her unsuccessful push for the state Supreme Court to declare the governor unfit for office.

Madigan's chief of staff Anne Spillane, fired back, saying "This assertion is meritless" in a letter to David Ellis, House Speaker Michael Madigan's general counsel.

State law requires the attorney general "defend all actions and proceedings against any state officer, in his official capacity, in any of the courts of this state or the United States."

But Spillane noted that ongoing impeachment proceedings don't constitute an action in "court," as the law lays out. Nor is the House's inquiry related to Blagojevich in his "official capacity," she wrote.

"A suit is against a state official in his official capacity when the state, not the individual, is the 'real party in interest.' That is not the case in impeachment proceedings," Spillane said.

That privision of the law, she said, "therefore cannot entitle the governor to legal representation at the State's expense in the proceedings before the House of Representatives.

The determination is important since Blagojevich complained about being "financially strapped" in secretly recorded conversations taped by federal investigators. The Chicago Sun-Times also reported late Wednesday that his $3.6 million campaign fund also is about to be frozen by the government, drying up another source for the governor to pay his legal bills.

"As a sitting governor he is entitled to be represented by the attorney general," Genson told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. "He happens to have an attorney general who files things against him, so that's not appropriate.

"We can't very well ask her to defend him for this. And if he has an obligation to be defended by her, I felt that they should pay -- they being the state of Illinois," Genson said.

The governor's lawyer later told the Sun-Times it was never his intent to have the state pay for the governor's criminal defense despite sending a letter to Madigan Tuesday that made that request, and which prompted Spillane's response.

"That would be stupid," he said.

Genson declined to identify how much he intended to charge Blagojevich for his legal defense, telling a reporter, "Why should I tell you what my rate is?"

Pressed on what he intended to charge the state for representing Blagojevich had Madigan approved his request to be appointed a special attorney general, Genson said, "Whatever they think is fair."

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