UPDATED 2/11 10:16 A.M.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Capitol News Illinois) – President Donald Trump on Monday granted a full pardon to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on 18 corruption counts, including for his attempt to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat in 2008 – and who holds the distinction of being the state’s only impeached governor.
Trump’s pardon comes five years after he commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence in February 2020, sending the disgraced ex-governor home from lockup in a low-security Colorado facility six years early.
Read more: Little support in Springfield for Trump’s Blagojevich commutation
Both in the leadup to commuting Blagojevich’s sentence and on Monday, Trump used the former Democrat’s criminal case as a way to discount the myriad investigations, indictments and convictions he’s faced, even as a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year granted him immunity from criminal liability for his official acts.
Signing the pardon in the Oval Office on Monday evening, Trump falsely claimed Blagojevich was “set up by a lot of bad people – some of the same people that I had to deal with.”
The president then said he didn’t know Blagojevich but added as an afterthought that “I believe he was on ‘The Apprentice,’” referring to the NBC reality TV show he hosted through 2015.
Blagojevich was “fired” on the fourth episode of “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010 during a media blitz the out-of-work governor went on after his indictment in an attempt to sell his narrative.
Blagojevich served six years as governor before his December 2008 arrest and his subsequent impeachment in January 2009.
Though his first trial ended in a hung jury on 23 of 24 counts, he was ultimately convicted in 2011 on charges ranging from shaking down a children’s hospital executive and a racetrack owner for campaign donations to the attempted Senate seat sale, for which the governor held appointment power.
In a now-infamous wiretapped call after Obama’s election to the White House, Blagojevich referred to his soon-to-be-vacated post in the Senate as “f—— golden,” telling an adviser that he didn’t intend on “giving it up for f—— nothing.”
Blagojevich attempted to extract value from the appointment, including seeking campaign cash, high-paying jobs for both himself and his wife Patti, and an appointment to Obama’s future presidential cabinet – or an ambassadorship.
Sixteen years later, Blagojevich may finally get that ambassadorship.
Trump is considering appointing Blagojevich as ambassador to his family’s native Serbia, according to a report last week from POLITICO.
When he signed the pardon Monday, Trump denied considering Blagojevich for ambassador, but then said it wasn’t out of the cards.
“No, but I would (appoint Blagojevich),” Trump said. “He’s now cleaner than anybody in this room.”
Since his release from prison in 2020, Blagojevich has called himself a “Trumpocrat,” disavowing his former political party and tying himself closely to Trump. At last summer’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the ex-governor spoke at a “Serbs for Trump” gathering.
In a news conference outside of his home on Chicago’s Northwest Side Monday evening, Blagojevich declined to comment on the potential appointment. He was otherwise unrepentant as ever, railing against what he called the “weaponization of prosecutors for political purposes.”
Blagojevich maintained that what the FBI caught on wiretapped calls was merely a “routine political deal” – an argument mirrored by attorneys for the ex-governor’s political nemesis, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who is currently awaiting a verdict in his own corruption trial.
Blagojevich declined to comment on Madigan’s case, instead delivering a variation on the same message he’s had since his arrest.
“I want to say to the people of Illinois two things,” he said. “No. 1: I never raised your taxes. No. 2: I didn’t do it.”
Both Republicans and Democrats were critical of Trump’s commutation decision in 2020, though elected officials were slow to react Monday evening.
In a social media post on X, Senate Minority Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said he disagreed with Trump’s decision.
“Illinois taxpayers have and continue to be burdened with the cost of public corruption, and this pardon sends the wrong message,” Curran wrote.
Illinois’ senior Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s X account posted “In a state with more than its fair share of public corruption, the Blagojevich chapter still looms as one of the worst.”
“America and Serbia deserve better,” the post said.
Blagojevich was formally disbarred a few months after his release from prison – a move he decried Monday night, calling the Illinois’ attorney disciplinary board “sons of b——.”
He also again claimed he had no plans to return to politics, despite having sued in 2021 for the ability to once again run for state or local office in Illinois.
But a federal judge last year quoted Dr. Seuss in dismissing the ex-governor’s motion, writing that Blagojevich’s lawsuit wasn’t even filed in the right venue to review the Illinois Senate’s unanimous 2009 vote barring him from ever again holding office in Illinois.
Read more: Judge rips Blagojevich’s ‘publicity stunt’ bid to get court’s approval to run for office again
Even without the specific ban on Blagojevich holding office, the federal 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has upheld an Illinois’ law that bars those who’ve been convicted of “infamous crimes” – including bribery – from holding office in Illinois. Trump’s pardon does not erase the ex-governor’s convictions; only expungement can do that.
The U.S. constitution puts few restrictions on holding federal office, meaning Blagojevich would be free to run for his old congressional seat he held from 1997 to 2003.
The ex-governor collects a $15,000 annual pension from his years in congress but after his 2011 conviction, he was barred from collecting the roughly $65,000 per year pension he’d otherwise be entitled to for his years in the General Assembly.
(Reporting by Hannah Meisel and Bridgette Fox, Capitol News Illinois)
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat and former contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice,” who was convicted of corruption for trying to sell former President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat.
Blagojevich was removed from office in 2009 after prosecutors said he tried to sell or trade the Senate seat vacated by Obama after Obama won the 2008 presidential election.
Speaking in the Oval Office, where he signed the pardon, Trump said Blagojevich had suffered a “terrible injustice.”
Trump, during his first term, had commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence. Blagojevich had appeared on Trump’s reality TV show, “Celebrity Apprentice,” in 2010 while awaiting trial.
The Supreme Court in 2018 rejected a bid by Blagojevich to get his sentence reduced. It had been scheduled to run until 2026.
Blagojevich cast himself as a victim of an overzealous and politically motivated prosecution by federal law enforcement, an accusation that appeared to resonate with Trump.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by David Gregorio and Sonali Paul)
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