Impeachment, conviction, prison
staffer from that time, who spoke on the condition of not being named.
Behind them, tight-lipped federal agents were boxing up documents, removing hard drives, locking office doors — including that of the governor’s chief of staff, John Harris, who was indicted with his boss and would later plead guilty to a single charge of conspiring to commit solicitation.
With the lawyers doing all the talking, the staffers did what anyone would do under the circumstances — they went out for drinks.
But there was no escaping the image of their boss, whose face kept appearing on the big-screen TVs at the North Side bar where they went.
“Our table asked the bartender if they could please turn the channel because we worked for [Blagojevich], and the bartender bought us a round of shots,” the staffer said.
Within 24 hours of the governor’s arrest, state legislators — who weren’t in session at the time — began talking about a possible impeachment but with no glee, even for his opponents.
Current Republican House Leader Jim Durkin, who was then the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he and others in his party felt shame, not relief, at the news of Blagojevich’s arrest.
“The embarrassment of having your governor of Illinois being handcuffed and walked out of his home and placed in a federal courthouse at a bond hearing in a matter of hours — there’s no sense of joy or anything positive about it,” Durkin said. “It was a terrible situation.”
In the weeks that followed, the state’s unconventional governor defied conventional wisdom, appearing on “Good Morning America,” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “The Celebrity Apprentice,” among many others, proclaiming his innocence.
Blagojevich declared, “The fix is in,” when he predicted he would be impeached and removed from office.
Again and again, he insisted, “I have done nothing wrong.” But he ultimately was found guilty — after two trials — of 18 charges, though five counts later were overturned.
He’s now serving 14 years in a federal prison in Colorado.
The former governor’s famed chestnut coif — he would have a state trooper carry a hairbrush for him — is now all gray.
In an interview last year, Blagojevich, whose salary as governor was about $177,000, said he now makes $8 an hour. And he no longer follows politics.
Hopes for clemency from Trump
Having exhausted his legal appeals, he and his family now hope he still might be freed by the man who once fired Blagojevich from “Celebrity Apprentice,” President Donald Trump.
In May, Trump told reporters, “I am seriously thinking about — not pardoning — but I am seriously thinking of a curtailment of Blagojevich because what he did does not justify 18 years in a jail,” misstating Blagojevich’s sentence.
Patti Blagojevich has been making public appeals, most notably on Fox News, urging the president to grant clemency to her husband.
His brother also holds out that hope, saying in an interview, “He’s served way too much time already and deserves a break.”