Rod Blagojevich's legal bills now top $2 million

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration has been beset by myriad investigations, disclosed almost $1 million in new legal bills Tuesday, on top of the $1.1 million he's already paid to a prominent Chicago firm.

The governor's campaign spokesman reported $965,352 in legal fees for 2007, bringing Blagojevich's total tab to more than $2 million in billings for Winston & Strawn. The legal spending comes after federal investigators began ramping up their probes into alleged wrongdoing involving state hiring, contracting and board appointments in 2006.

The disclosure came on the day that politicians were required to file campaign finance reports detailing the source of their donations and spending for the last six months of 2007. Blagojevich's report for the last half of 2007 was delayed by computer problems, but campaign spokesman Doug Scofield provided the figures late Tuesday.

Scofield said $555,255 in new billings from Winston & Strawn represented a disputed debt for the first six months of 2007 that the campaign now had agreed it owed. He said the bills had not been disclosed earlier because there had been "some discussion about the size of the bill" between the campaign and the law firm.

"As soon as that was decided, it was filed appropriately," Scofield said. "As soon as it was clarified, it was filed appropriately."

Scofield said Blagojevich also will report new billings of more than $410,000, listed as debt, for the last six months of 2007.

When it filed its state-mandated campaign reports in July, the Blagojevich campaign only reported paying $163,000 in legal fees to Winston & Strawn and gave no indication that other bills had been submitted by the law firm.

The Tribune reported late last year that federal investigators also have begun looking into real estate deals involving Blagojevich's wife, Patricia, which netted the state's first family hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions from politically connected clients.

The campaign, as has been its recent tradition, has refused to identify what legal services are provided by Winston & Strawn. In December, former Gov. Jim Thompson, the senior chairman of Winston & Strawn, acknowledged that one of the firm's top criminal defense attorneys was working for the Blagojevich campaign. Thompson said he did not know what work the firm was doing for the Blagojevich campaign and told the Tribune, "if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."

Even though Tony Rezko isn't mentioned,this is another Tony Rezko story.