Blagojevich will attend last day of trial — UPDATED

Just as the Senate prepared to call the last witness in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's impeachment trial this afternoon, Senate President John Cullerton announced that the governor may appear in the chamber Thursday to offer a closing argument.

A spokesman for the governor's public relations firm could not confirm at 3 p.m. whether the governor would, in fact, appear in Springfield tomorrow. Justin Herndon of the Publicity Agency said they were trying to figure out his schedule. But about 35 minutes later, the agency posted this update on it's social networking Twitter site: "Governor says he will go to Springfield tomorrow and appear before senators to make his case." Here's the press release.

The Senate trial rules allow 60 minutes for House Prosecutor David Ellis to make closing statements, which is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Thursday. Then the governor or his legal defense would have 90 minutes to offer closing arguments, to which Ellis would have 30 minutes to offer a rebuttal. Times can be extended with a majority vote of the 59 senators. See Rule 16 of the Senate trial rules.