Trump Pardon’s Ex-Aillinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich

Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump pardoned Monday Former Illinois Gov. Rod BlagojevichIf 14-year-old judgment for political corruption taxes he commuted during his first period.

The Republican President called the Democratic former governor who once appeared on Trump’s reality -tv show “Celebrity Apprentice”, “a very fine person” and said conviction and imprisonment “shouldn’t have happened.”

Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 on charges that included attempts to sell an agreement to the then President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat and tried to shake down at a children’s hospital. Blagojevich sentenced eight years in prison before Trump interrupted his period in 2020.

Former Governor’s wife, Patti Blagojevich, reached by phone on Monday afternoon after news about the pardon leaked out, referred a reporter to a spokesman who did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

“I’ve seen him. He was created by a lot of bad people, some of the same people I had to tackle, ”Trump said in the White House as he signed the pardon.

At the time Trump announced Blagojevich’s commuting in 2020, Trump had been investigated for his bond with Russia and their attempts to interfere in the 2016 election. The president made it clear that he saw similarities between efforts to investigate his own behavior And those who took down Blagojevich.

“It was a prosecution of the same people – Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group,” Trump told journalists. He referred to Patrick Fitzgerald, the former US lawyer who accused Blagojevich and later represented the former FBI director James Comey, whom Trump fired from the agency in May 2017. Comey worked in the private sector during the Blagojevich investigation and the indictment.

Former specialist adviser Robert Mueller, who monitored the investigation of ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, was the FBI director during the investigation of Blagojevich.

Already this expression has trump gave Klemency to more than 1,500 people who were all indicted in connection with 6. January 2021, Riot by the US capital. The clamp, which was announced on Trump’s first day back in office, paved the way for the release of the prison for humans, lost the presidential election in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump expressed some sympathy for Blagojevich when he appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, before his first corruption study started. When Trump fired Blagojevich as a participant, he praised him for how he fought for his criminal case and said to him, “You have a hell of a lot of gut.”

Despite this, Trump Monday made the surprise that he “didn’t know him,” but then said he thought Blagojevich showed up on his reality show “for a little while.”

When asked about reports that he was considering appointing Blagojevich as ambassador to Serbia, Trump replied: “No, but I would. He is now cleaner than anyone in this room. “

Patti Blagojevich spent almost two years making public pleas for her husband’s release in Trump’s first period, often appearing on Fox News Channel, as Trump Viet sees. She pulled parallels between her husband’s treatment and Trumps along with rushing Trump with praise.

Trump’s decision to commute Blagojevich’s verdict was met with Bipartisan criticism in Illinois. Democratic head of government JB Pritzker said at the time that Trump “has abused his pardon in unexplained ways of rewarding his friends and condoning corruption, and I think this pardon is sending the wrong message at the wrong time.”

According to the Restoration of Rights Project, a pardon typically removes the column to certain civil rights, including voting, serves in a jury driving to public office, owns a gun and retains certain licenses.

The State Supreme Court revoked Blagojevich’s law license, but a result a pardon cannot return, according to the Ministry of Justice’s office of the pardon lawyer.

Blagojevich also bears the burden of forgery of the State Senate in 2009, an act that, according to the state’s constitution, prevents him from holding any state office. Last year, a The federal judge rejected blagojevich’s trial Claim that the ban violated his and voters’ constitutional rights, but a spokesman for the state election board said it is unclear whether the pardon would clear the way for him to seek the federal office.

Blagojevich was sentenced on 18 counts. The 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in 2015 threw out five of the beliefs, including those where he offered to appoint someone to a high-paying job in the Senate.

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Price reported from New York. Associated Press writer John O’Connor in Springfield, Illinois, contributed to this report.