By Michael Williams

(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Monday pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was sent to prison on corruption charges surrounding his time in office.

Signing the pardon in the Oval Office, Trump described Blagojevich as a “very fine person” and said it was time to “let him have a normal life.”

“It was a sort of a terrible injustice,” Trump said. “They just were after him. They go after a lot of people. These are bad people, the other side.”

Blagojevich, who was the Democratic governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009, was removed from office and later convicted of charges that included a scheme to sell an appointment to fill the vacant Senate seat left by then-President Barack Obama.

A first trial resulted in a hung jury on many of the key charges against him, but a second resulted in Blagojevich’s 2011 conviction on 17 of 20 corruption counts.

The former governor served eight years of a 14-year prison sentence before Trump commuted his sentence during his first term in early 2020. Trump’s decision faced opposition from some conservative members of Congress and White House advisers who warned the president that it would undercut his promise to “drain the swamp.”

Trump at the time described Blagojevich as a “very nice person” and criticized his lengthy prison sentence. The former governor later morphed into a staunch Trump advocate who supported his 2020 and 2024 presidential races. Blagojevich told CNN last year he considers himself a “Trumpocrat,” which he described as a Democrat who supports Trump.

Blagojevich was also a contestant on Trump’s TV show “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, after he had been removed from office but before his first trial.

The-CNN-Wire
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