UPDATE: The full house voted 114-1 on Friday morning to impeach Rod Blagojevich. The Senate will hold the trial.

The House Committee on Impeachment unanimously recommended that Rod Blagojevich be impeached. Their recommendation now moves to the full House, where lawmakers are expected to vote tomorrow. If it passes (or should I say, when it passes), the Senate will then hold an impeachment trial.

Here’s the Committee’s report. Here’s the summary:

In sum, the Committee heard a great volume of evidence relating to the Governor’s abuse of power. The Committee received a criminal complaint and affidavit whose weight comes primarily from the Governor’s own words, when he was unaware that the government was listening. Those recordings captured the Governor overseeing and directing plans to negotiate a personal benefit for his appointment of a u.S. Senator; conditioning the provision of State financial assistance to the Tribune Company on the firing of members of the Chicago Tribune editorial board; and engaging in a number of instances of tying official actions to campaign contributions. The Committee saw further evidence of the Governor linking campaign contributions to official actions with the sworn federal court testimony of Ali Ata and Joseph Cari, testimony which helped lead to the conviction of one of the Governor’s top fundraisers, Antoin Rezko. The Committee heard evidence that the Governor defied JCAR and expanded a health care plan without legal authority or a funding source. And the Committee heard a number of abuses exposed by Auditor General Holland in his audits of the flu vaccine program, the I-SaveRx program, and the efficiency initiative.

In response to all of this evidence, the Governor chose to remain silent and absent from the proceedings. His counsel offered a Transition Report from the President-Elect’s attorney on the subject of the Senate seat and a videotape of a press conference by Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. Beyond that, the Governor’s counsel named four individuals that, he predicted, would testify that they were not approached by anyone from the Governor’s staff for any wrongful purpose related to the Senate seat and, in one case, related to the Tribune Company issue. It is fair to note, however, that at the time the Governor’s counsel made the proffer of the four witnesses (December 23, 2008), the U.S. Attorney had already requested that the Committee refrain from inquiring into the subject matters of the Senate seat and the Tribune Company (December 22,2008). The Governor’s counsel knew, at the time he made the request, that it would not be granted.

In sum, the Committee has heard a great deal of evidence relating to various instances where the Governor’s inappropriate actions constitute abuse of power. The Governor’s counsel, in response, has provided the Committee only a small amount of information that does not even address the majority of the claims raised in this proceeding.

My favorite part is where he paid someone who didn’t know sign language to be an interpreter for the deaf.