Chicago: Unrelenting in the face of a House impeachment, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, facing charges of allegedly trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's senate seat, today said the House's action did not surprise him and he is confident that he will be exonerated.

"The House's action did not come as a surprise... It was a foregone conclusion, kind of expected," Blagojevich told reporters here.

The Illinois House yesterday impeached Blagojevich by a vote of 114 to 1,setting up a trial in the state Senate on whether to throw out the state's chief executive facing federal corruption charges.

"At the end of the day I am confident that I will be properly exonerated. I am going to fight every step of the way. I am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing," he said.

Blagojevich, the first governor in the state to be impeached, said he has had to "struggle" with the House on various occasions to get humanitarian projects underway. He was arrested on December 9 on federal charges.

"The House has stood in the way of projects and I have pushed and proded with the House for projects for people."

Accompanied by a few people who he said had benefitted from some of his initiatives like the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer programme, the governor said, "I took action with the advise of lawyers".

"I would suggest that while the House is busy trying to throw me out of office, they may actually want to stop families from being thrown out of their homes," he added.

Blagojevich closed with an Alfred Tennyson's quote, "Though we are not now the strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are... One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and by fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find. And not to yeild". He did not take questions from the media.
Source : PTI