WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday will pardon Democratic former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to a person familiar with his plans.
Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence for political corruption charges during his first term. He planned to sign the pardon on Monday afternoon, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the pardon publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Blagojevich was convicted on charges that included seeking to sell an appointment to then-President Barack Obama’s old Senate seat and trying to shake down a children’s hospital.
Blagojevich, who appeared on Trump’s reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice,” was convicted in 2011. He served eight years before Trump, a Republican, cut short his term.
The intended pardon during Trump’s fourth week in office follows clemency that Trump granted on his first day back to the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. The move paved the way for the release from prison of people found guilty of violent attacks on police as well as leaders of far-right extremist groups convicted of failed plots to keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.
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.
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 ties between between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign, was FBI director during the investigation into Blagojevich.
Blagojevich was convicted on 18 counts. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in 2015 tossed out five of the convictions, including ones in which he offered to appoint someone to a high-paying job in the Senate.
Axios first reported the news of the expected pardon on Monday afternoon.
___
Price reported from New York.
Zeke Miller And Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press
