DEVELOPING: President Trump Expected To Pardon Former Democrat Governor

President Trump is expected to pardon former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, multiple outlets report.

The former Illinois governor “served eight years in prison on charges stemming from his effort to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat after Obama won the 2008 presidential election,” Fox News stated.

Trump commuted his 14-year sentence in 2020.

AXIOS: Trump expected to pardon former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich

LET’S GO pic.twitter.com/iFBlcj3BrN

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) February 10, 2025

Fox News reports:

Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 and was sentenced to 14 years before Trump cut his prison term short.

Blagojevich appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, before his first corruption trial started, drawing praise from Trump at the time when he “fired” him as a contestant.

Later as president, Trump drew links between investigations of his own behavior in his first term and Blagojevich’s case.

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Patrick Fitzgerald, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blagojevich, represented former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired from the agency in 2017.

Comey was working in the private sector during the Blagojevich investigation and indictment.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the investigation into the Russian collusion hoax, was FBI director during the investigation into Blagojevich.

Donald Trump set to pardon disgraced ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich: source https://t.co/iSOhjoktqS pic.twitter.com/ewPYvFVpAu

— New York Post (@nypost) February 10, 2025

“Trump freed me & Obama sold me out so I’m biased, but I believe Trump has done more as President in his whirlwind first 8 days than Obama did in his entire 8 years. What do you think?” Blagojevich said last month.

Trump freed me & Obama sold me out so I’m biased, but I believe Trump has done more as President in his whirlwind first 8 days than Obama did in his entire 8 years. What do you think?

— Rod Blagojevich (@realBlagojevich) January 28, 2025

From the New York Post:

At trial, the then-governor insisted he merely meant it was a “unique opportunity” to appoint someone, but another recording captured Blagojevich implying he was offered $500,000 — while prosecutors said he wanted as much as $1.5 million.

Blagojevich also was convicted of forcing a children’s hospital CEO to pay $25,000 in exchange for approving pending pediatric reimbursement policies, attempting to score $100,000 in kickbacks to sign a bill that would have helped the horseracing industry and lying to the FBI.

The former governor told podcaster Joe Rogan last month that he was set up by the “corrupt and dishonest” FBI and argued that then-Chicago US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wanted to boast of busting two governors in a row.

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“They feel like they’re a power center in their own right,” he told Rogan of federal law enforcement.

The blunt-talking governor, who appeared on the Trump-hosted NBC reality show “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, told Rogan that the president also was persecuted, pointing to Trump’s conviction in Manhattan last year on 34 felonies of falsifying business records to conceal 2016 hush money payments.

“What happened to Trump is so important. They did it in those different courts where they got convictions for things that weren’t crimes,” Blagojevich explained.

Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence during his first term as the 45th president sought re-election, saying the punishment was “ridiculous” and didn’t fit the ex-governor’s crimes.

The initial clemency grant followed lobbying from the former governor’s wife Patti after Trump repeatedly expressed frustration with the FBI over the long-running and leaky probe of his 2016 campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia, which turned up no evidence of a conspiracy.

Watch Rod Blagojevich’s appearance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” below:

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

View the original article here.