President Donald Trump on Monday will pardon Democratic former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to a person familiar with his plans.
Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence for political corruption charges during his first term. The Republican president planned to sign the pardon on Monday, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the pardon publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 on charges that included seeking to sell an appointment to then-President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat and trying to shake down a children’s hospital. Blagojevich, who appeared on Trump’s reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice,” served eight years in prison before Trump cut short his term in 2020.
The former governor’s wife, Patti Blagojevich, reached by phone, referred a reporter to a spokesperson who did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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 at the U.S. Capitol. The clemency, announced on Trump’s 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.
Trump expressed some sympathy for Blagojevich when he appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” 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, “You have a hell of a lot of guts.”
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.
Patti Blagojevich spent nearly two years making public pleas for her husband’s release during Trump’s first term, appearing often on Fox News Channel, which Trump devotedly watches. She drew parallels between her husband’s treatment and Trump’s, along with showering Trump with praise.
At the time that Trump announced Blagojevich’s 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.
“It was a prosecution by the same people — Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group,” 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.
Former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the investigation into ties between between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, was FBI director during the investigation into Blagojevich.
Trump’s decision to commute Blagojevich’s sentence was met with bipartisan criticism in Illinois. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at 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.”
Axios first reported the news of the expected pardon on Monday afternoon.
