This afternoon, Roland Burris held a press conference with local reporters to address the information included in his latest affidavit to the Illinois House impeachment committee:

As you can see, Burris is trying to focus all the attention on State Rep. Jim Durkin's line of questioning during the January 8 hearing -- claiming that Durkin didn't give him a chance to fully illustrate the extent of his contacts with Blagojevich aides prior to the governor's arrest.  And indeed, as the video we posted yesterday shows, Durkin passed up an opportunity to press Burris on this matter (as did all the committee members who subsequently questioned him).

But that's really beside the point. 

As Capitol Fax points out, the real issue should be Burris' initial affidavit (PDF) to the committee, which included this assertion:

Prior to the December 26, 2008 telephone call from Mr. Adams, Jr., there was not any contact between myself or any of my representatives with Governor Blagojevich or any of his representatives regarding my appointment to the United States Senate.

I don't know how Burris convinces anyone that the above statement wasn't just-plain-false. That being said, he's going to try.  Here he is at the end of the above video from today's press conference:

BURRIS: The first affidavit dealt with the appointment ... I had no contact with anybody in reference to the appointment [prior to Blagojevich's arrest].  ... The second affidavit then dealt with contacts I had about the Senate seat.  Look at the difference.  One dealt with the appointment -- that's all we were dealing with.  The other one dealt with the Senate seat and I talked to a whole lot of people about the Senate seat.  So there's no inconsistency.  And I'm asking the media people to really look at that.

Burris seems to be arguing that the previously undisclosed conversations included in the new affidavit were just casual chats among politicos about the possibility of the Senate seat opening up (like many of us were having at the time) and that the idea of him being appointed to the seat was not part of those discussions. But this attempt at parsing is undermined by the new affidavit itself, which describes him telling Wyma and Scofield last June that he was "interested" in filling the seat:

On June 27, 2008, I attended a fundraising event for then-Governor Blagojevich at which I encountered Doug Scofield and John Wyma. During that event I likely asked Mr. Scofield and/or Mr. Wyma to tell Governor Blagojevich that I was interested in filling now-President Barack Obama’s Senate seat if he were to be elected President of the United States.” 

So what happens next?  The Republicans want a perjury investigation, but such charges seem unlikely.  As Capitol Fax points out, the resignation and special election chatter has begun to surface again, but that also seems like a long shot. 

The more probable scenario involves Sens. Durbin and Reid (and perhaps President Obama) using this episode to convince Burris not to run for reelection in 2010.  After all, recent reports indicate they were already looking for a way to make that happen.