Trump considering ending Blagojevich’s prison term
CHICAGO — President Donald Trump has once again dangled the idea of commuting the 14-year prison sentence for disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, telling reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday night he was “very strongly” considering springing Blagojevich from prison five years early.
The president’s comments — largely echoing remarks he made 14 months ago — gave new hope to Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, who released a statement Thursday saying the family was “very hopeful that our almost 11 year nightmare might soon be over.”
But Trump also showed he has done little homework on the case since he first raised the idea of using his powers of executive clemency for Blagojevich in May 2018.
Trump repeated the same misstatement he made last year that Blagojevich was sentenced to 18 years in prison and once again mentioned only one wiretapped phone call by Blagojevich, when much of the evidence presented at trial came from witnesses who said the governor was shaking them down for campaign cash in exchange for official acts.
The victims included the then-CEO of Children’s Memorial Hospital, now Lurie Children’s Hospital, who said he was pressured to contribute tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for state funding.
“He’s been in jail for seven years over a phone call where nothing happens. But over a phone — where nothing happens,” Trump said after making visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, following mass shootings in those cities over the weekend. “But over a phone call which, you know, he shouldn’t have said what he said, but it was braggadocio, you would say.”
Such mischaracterizations have been criticized before by those who investigated and prosecuted Blagojevich.
Robert Grant, the former head of the FBI in Chicago who helped lead the sprawling Operation Board Games investigation that ultimately led to Blagojevich’s downfall, told the Chicago Tribune in May 2018 after Trump first raised the possible commutation that any executive clemency for the ex-governor would be “nothing but a mean-spirited slap” at Trump’s perceived political enemies.