Governor Rod Blagojevich laid the groundwork for a moment of crushing irony in a 2006 speech in which he promised his mother he would always be honest and "never take bribes," according to a copy of the video obtained by ABC News.
Addressing a Democratic Party gathering in Chicago in 2006, Blagojevich recounted a conversation with his mother after he was first elected to political office, as an Illinois state representative:
She said son, now that you won, whatever you do, be honest. And I told her, oh Mom, of course I'll be honest because that's how you raised me," Blagojevich says.
Then, he recalled, she said, "Promise me, son, that you will never take bribes and I said, of course I'll never take bribes. Not only would that be dishonest, it would be illegal, and I would never do anything to dishonor the memory of my father."