Rob Blagojevich commuted from Jail By Trump
It really doesn’t seem like it has been 8 years but I guess when you think of the crime is has been that long. The controversial move comes after Trump granted a full pardon to former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. Tuesday and more than a year after Trump first revealed he was considering commuting Blagojevich’s sentence. Rod R. Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who was convicted on corruption charges in 2011 related to trying to sell then-President Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat, Trump said Blagojevich’s daughters have not seen their father outside of prison, and he thought of them as he made his decision. “He’ll be able to go back home with his family after serving eight years in jail, that was a tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence in my opinion,” Trump said. Blagojevich, 62, has been serving a 14-year sentence and is not due to be released from prison until May 2024.
Rod Blagojevich saga timeline: From his arrest to President Trump »
Blagojevich served as governor from 2003, was re-elected in 2006 despite a swirl of federal investigations, and was impeached and removed from office in 2009. Several prominent Democrats have also lobbied for a shortened sentence, arguing that Blagojevich’s punishment was too severe. The five Republicans in Illinois’ congressional delegation, however, had urged Trump not to commute the former governor’s sentence, citing the importance of taking “a strong stand against pay-to-play politics.” Now looking at this we should also look at Roger Stone, but then again that is a different situation, and we will have to see how that plays out.
Blagojevich was caught on FBI wiretaps talking about trying to sell Obama’s vacated Senate seat, saying it was a “valuable thing” and that “you don’t just give it away for nothing.” But Trump told reporters he believed Blagojevich had sufficiently served his time for an offense the president did not view as particularly pernicious.
“He’s been in jail for seven years over a phone call where nothing happens — over a phone call which he shouldn’t have said what he said, but it was braggadocio, you would say,” Trump told reporters last year. “I would think that there have been many politicians — I’m not one of them, by the way — that have said a lot worse over the telephone.”
Read the whole article Chicago Tribune Here or if you can open read the Washington Post
