President Donald Trump on Monday issued a full pardon to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Blagojevich, 68, who was a Democrat while in office had served eight years in prison on charges stemming from his effort to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat after Obama won the 2008 presidential election.
“It’s my pleasure,” Trump said during remarks in the Oval Office, adding, “I think he’s a very fine person. This shouldn’t have happened to him.”
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Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence in 2020.
Axios first reported on Trump’s plans to pardon Blagojevich.
Blagojevich was convicted in 2009 of lying to an FBI agent. Jurors deadlocked on other counts. At his 2011 retrial, he was found guilty on all counts, after government recordings revealed his attempts to sell Obama’s seat. He was also convicted of shaking down a children’s hospital executive for campaign contributions and holding up a bill involving the horse-racing industry in exchange for campaign contributions.
In between the trials, he was a contestant on Trump’s reality TV show “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010.
Blagojevich was impeached and expelled from office in January 2009 after he refused to resign after his arrest the previous year on a litany of corruption charges.
Blagojevich’s longtime lawyer Shelly Sorosky on Monday called the possibility of a pardon something that has been “on the radar” for some time. Sorosky went on to describe Blagojevich and Trump as having a “good, friendly relationship.”
Blagojevich could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
For years, Blagojevich’s name was synonymous with corruption in Illinois, after FBI recordings revealed his musings about trading government actions for personal benefit.
In 2019, Illinois’ Republican congressional delegation sent Trump a letter asking him not to commute the former governor’s sentence, saying it sent a wrong message. Trump, in his first term, commuted his term anyway.
“It’s important that we take a strong stand against pay-to-play politics, especially in Illinois where four of our last eight Governors have gone to federal prison for public corruption,” they wrote. “Commuting the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, who has a clear and documented record of egregious corruption, sets a dangerous precedent and goes against the trust voters place in elected officials.”
