{"id":340,"date":"2025-02-10T22:53:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T22:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/10\/trump-is-expected-to-pardon-ex-illinois-gov-rod-blagojevich-5-years-after-commuting-his-sentence-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-02-10T22:53:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T22:53:50","slug":"trump-is-expected-to-pardon-ex-illinois-gov-rod-blagojevich-5-years-after-commuting-his-sentence-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/10\/trump-is-expected-to-pardon-ex-illinois-gov-rod-blagojevich-5-years-after-commuting-his-sentence-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump is expected to pardon ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich 5 years after commuting his sentence – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich<\/a><\/span>, whose 14-year sentence for political corruption charges he commuted during his first term.<\/p>\n

The Republican president signed the pardon on Monday, calling the Democratic former governor \u201ca very fine person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 on charges that included seeking to sell an appointment to then-President Barack Obama\u2019s old Senate seat and trying to shake down a children\u2019s hospital. Blagojevich, who appeared on Trump\u2019s reality TV show \u201cCelebrity Apprentice,\u201d served eight years in prison before Trump cut short his term in 2020.<\/p>\n

The former governor\u2019s wife, Patti Blagojevich, reached by phone, referred a reporter to a spokesperson who did not immediately return a message seeking comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people I had to deal with,\u201d Trump said at the White House as he signed the pardon.<\/p>\n

At the time that Trump announced Blagojevich\u2019s commutation in 2020, Trump had been investigated for his ties to Russia and their attempts to interfere in the 2016 election. The president made clear that he saw similarities between efforts to investigate his own conduct and those that took down Blagojevich.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a prosecution by the same people \u2014 Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group,\u201d Trump told reporters. He was referring to Patrick Fitzgerald, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blagojevich and later represented former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired from the agency in May 2017. Comey was working in the private sector during the Blagojevich investigation and indictment.<\/p>\n

Former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the investigation into ties between between Russia and Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign, was FBI director during the investigation into Blagojevich.<\/p>\n

Already this term, Trump has granted clemency to more than 1,500 people, all of whom were charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot<\/a><\/span> at the U.S. Capitol. The clemency, announced on Trump\u2019s first day back in office, paved the way for the release from prison of people found guilty of violent attacks on police as well as leaders of far-right extremist groups convicted of failed plots to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

Trump expressed some sympathy for Blagojevich when he appeared on \u201cCelebrity Apprentice\u201d in 2010 before his first corruption trial started. When Trump fired Blagojevich as a contestant, he praised him for how he was fighting his criminal case, telling him, \u201cYou have a hell of a lot of guts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite that, Trump on Monday made the puzzling claim that he \u201cdidn\u2019t know him,\u201d but then said he believed Blagojevich appeared on his reality show \u201cfor a little while.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked by a reporter about reports that he was considering appointing Blagojevich as ambassador to Serbia, Trump responded: \u201cNo, but I would. He\u2019s now cleaner than anybody in this room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patti Blagojevich spent nearly two years making public pleas for her husband\u2019s release during Trump\u2019s first term, appearing often on Fox News Channel, which Trump devotedly watches. She drew parallels between her husband\u2019s treatment and Trump\u2019s, along with showering Trump with praise.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision to commute Blagojevich\u2019s sentence was met with bipartisan criticism in Illinois. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at the time that Trump \u201chas 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Restoration of Rights Project, a pardon typically removes the bar to certain civil rights, including voting, serving on a jury, running for public office, owning a gun and retaining certain licenses.<\/p>\n

The state Supreme Court revoked Blagojevich\u2019s law license, however, an outcome a pardon can\u2019t reverse, according to the Justice Department\u2019s Office of the Pardon Attorney.<\/p>\n

Blagojevich\u2019s case is also complicated by his 2009 impeachment and removal from office by the state Senate. The decision barred him from holding office again and last year, a federal judge dismissed Blagojevich\u2019s lawsuit<\/a><\/span> claiming that the ban violated his and voters\u2019 constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the state Board of Elections was researching the pardon\u2019s effect on that decree.<\/p>\n

Blagojevich was convicted on 18 counts. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in 2015 tossed out five of the convictions, including ones in which he offered to appoint someone to a high-paying job in the Senate.<\/p>\n

___<\/h2>\n

Price reported from New York. Associated Press writer John O\u2019Connor in Springfield, Illinois, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose 14-year sentence for political corruption charges he commuted during his first term. The Republican president signed the pardon on Monday, calling the Democratic former governor \u201ca very fine person.\u201d Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 on charges that included seeking to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}