CHICAGO — Should he resign? Can he be forced out? Will he face criminal charges?
Illinois residents who thought they had put one big mess behind them with the ouster of Gov. Rod Blagojevich are getting that queasy, here-we-go-again feeling from Sen. Roland Burris, who has given shifting accounts of how he came to be appointed to the Senate.
"I think he should resign," Jan Treptow, 58, a registered nurse in Chicago, said Wednesday. "He seems to have lied. We've got enough dishonesty."
A preliminary U.S. Senate Ethics Committee inquiry is under way. Illinois lawmakers have asked local prosecutors to look into perjury charges. And the chorus of calls for his resignation grows, even from his own party.
"Our state and its citizens deserve the whole truth, not bits and pieces only when it is convenient," Rep. Phil Hare, D-Ill., said Wednesday in calling on Burris to step down.
Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on charges he plotted to sell President Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for campaign cash or a plum job for himself. Before he could be impeached and removed from office, he defied lawmakers by appointing Burris to the Senate.
Now Burris is accused of lying to an Illinois House committee back in January when he testified that he hadn't had contact with key Blagojevich staffers or offered anything in return for the seat.
Last weekend, Burris released an affidavit saying he had spoken to several Blagojevich advisers, including Robert Blagojevich, the former governor's brother and finance chairman, who Burris said called three times last fall asking for fundraising help. This week, Burris admitted trying, unsuccessfully, to raise money for Blagojevich.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the U.S. Senate's No. 2 Democrat, said Wednesday that Burris' statements "need to be looked at very carefully."
"His sworn testimony in Springfield did not satisfy our requirement in that it was not complete and we need to have the complete story before the final conclusion that we reach," Durbin said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he's not calling for Burris to resign even though the account of how he was appointed "seems to be changing day by day."
"It's not for me to say that he lied," Reid said Wednesday. "I don't know if he lied or didn't. Right now, he's a member of the Senate."
At a City Club of Chicago luncheon Wednesday, a fiery Burris asked guests to stop the rush to judgment.
"If I had done the things I've been accused of, I would be too embarrassed to stand up here in front of you because you all are my friends," Burris said, adding that during his decades of public service there was "never a hint of a scandal."
Burris then said he would no longer speak with the media. His office announced that events for today on his weeklong "listening tour" in northern Illinois were postponed "in order to hold private meetings."
The Senate Ethics Committee could recommend disciplinary action up to and including expulsion, though the final decision would rest with the Senate as a whole.