WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose 14-year sentence for political corruption costs he commuted throughout his first time period.
The Republican president known as the Democratic former governor, who as soon as appeared on Trump’s actuality TV present “Celebrity Apprentice,” “a very fine person” and stated the conviction and jail sentence “shouldn’t have happened.”
Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 on costs that included looking for to promote an appointment to then-President Barack Obama’s outdated Senate seat and attempting to shake down a youngsters’s hospital. Blagojevich served eight years in jail earlier than Trump minimize quick his time period in 2020.
The previous governor’s spouse, Patti Blagojevich, reached by telephone Monday afternoon after information of the pardon leaked out, referred a reporter to a spokesperson who didn’t instantly return a message looking for remark.
“I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people I had to deal with,” Trump stated on the White Home as he signed the pardon.
Scott Olson through Getty Photos
On the time that Trump introduced Blagojevich’s commutation in 2020, Trump had been investigated for his ties to Russia and their makes an attempt to intrude within the 2016 election. The president made clear that he noticed similarities between efforts to analyze his personal conduct and those who took down Blagojevich.
“It was a prosecution by the same people — Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group,” Trump instructed reporters. He was referring to Patrick Fitzgerald, the previous U.S. legal professional who prosecuted Blagojevich and later represented former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired from the company in Might 2017. Comey was working within the personal sector through the Blagojevich investigation and indictment.
Former particular counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the investigation into ties between between Russia and Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign, was FBI director through the investigation into Blagojevich.
Already this time period, Trump has granted clemency to greater than 1,500 individuals, all of whom had been charged in reference to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol. The clemency, introduced on Trump’s first day again in workplace, paved the best way for the discharge from jail of individuals discovered responsible of violent assaults on police in addition to leaders of far-right extremist teams convicted of failed plots to maintain Trump in energy after he misplaced the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump expressed some sympathy for Blagojevich when he appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010 earlier than his first corruption trial began. When Trump fired Blagojevich as a contestant, he praised him for the way he was combating his felony case, telling him, “You have a hell of a lot of guts.”
Regardless of that, Trump on Monday made the puzzling declare that he “didn’t know him,” however then stated he believed Blagojevich appeared on his actuality present “for a little while.”
When requested about experiences that he was contemplating appointing Blagojevich as ambassador to Serbia, Trump responded: “No, but I would. He’s now cleaner than anybody in this room.”
Patti Blagojevich spent practically two years making public pleas for her husband’s launch throughout Trump’s first time period, showing usually on Fox Information Channel, which Trump devotedly watches. She drew parallels between her husband’s remedy and Trump’s, together with showering Trump with reward.
Trump’s determination to commute Blagojevich’s sentence was met with bipartisan criticism in Illinois. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker stated on the time that Trump “has abused his pardon power in inexplicable ways to reward his friends and condone corruption, and I deeply believe this pardon sends the wrong message at the wrong time.”
Based on the Restoration of Rights Challenge, a pardon sometimes removes the bar to sure civil rights, together with voting, serving on a jury, working for public workplace, proudly owning a gun and retaining sure licenses.
The state Supreme Courtroom revoked Blagojevich’s regulation license, nonetheless, an final result a pardon can’t reverse, in response to the Justice Division’s Workplace of the Pardon Lawyer.
Blagojevich additionally carries the burden of impeachment by the state Senate in 2009, an motion which, in response to the state structure, bars him from holding any state workplace. Final yr, a federal decide dismissed Blagojevich’s lawsuit claiming that the ban violated his and voters’ constitutional rights, however a spokesperson for the state Board of Elections stated it’s unclear whether or not the pardon would clear the best way for him to hunt federal workplace.
Blagojevich was convicted on 18 counts. The seventh U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals in Chicago in 2015 tossed out 5 of the convictions, together with ones during which he supplied to nominate somebody to a high-paying job within the Senate.
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Worth reported from New York. Related Press author John O’Connor in Springfield, Illinois, contributed to this report.
