Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump Monday will forgive The former Democratic Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich,According to a person familiar with his plans.
Asset The 14 -year sentence of Blagojevich For accusations of political corruption during his first mandate. The Republican President planned to sign the forgiveness on Monday, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss forgiveness and spoke to the association Press subject to anonymity.
Blagojevich was sentenced in 2011 for accusations which included the search for an appointment at the former Senate headquarters of the president of Barack Obama, and trying to shake a children’s hospital. Blagojevich, who appeared in Trump’s reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice”, served eight years in prison before Trump cut his term in 2020.
The wife of the former governor, Patti Blagojevich, reached by phone, referred a journalist to a spokesperson who did not immediately send a message asking for comments.
Already this term, Trump gave mercy to more than 1,500 people, who were all charged with the January 6, 2021, riot to the American capital. The Clémence, announced on the first day of return of Trump, paved the way for the release of the prison of people recognized as guilty of violent attacks against the police as well as leaders of extremist groups of the far right recognized guilty of failed conspiracies for Keeping Trump after him after him lost the 2020 presidential election against Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump expressed a certain sympathy for Blagojevich when he appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010 before the start of his first corruption trial. When Trump dismissed Blagojevich as a competitor, he congratulated him on the way he was fighting on his criminal case, saying to him: “You have a lot of guts.”
Patti Blagojevich spent almost two years making public pleas for the release of her husband during Trump’s first term, often appearing on Fox News Channel, which Trump looks at with dedication. She made parallels between the treatment of her husband and that of Trump, as well as the Trump shower with praise.
At the time when Trump announced the switching of Blagojevich in 2020, Trump had been the subject of an investigation for his ties with Russia and their attempts to intervene in the 2016 elections. The president clearly indicated that he had seen similarities between efforts to investigate his own conduct and those who shot Blagojevich.
“It was a prosecution of the same people – Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group,” Trump told journalists. He referred to Patrick Fitzgerald, the former American lawyer who continued Blagojevich and then represented the former FBI director, James Comey, whom Trump fired from the agency in May 2017. Comey worked in the private sector during The investigation and the deed of reduction of Blagojevich.
Former special lawyer Robert Mueller, who supervised the investigation into the links between Russia and Trump’s campaign in 2016, was director of the FBI during the investigation into Blagojevich.
Trump’s decision to commute Blagojevich was encountered by Bipartite criticism in Illinois. Democratic Governor JB Pritzker said at the time that Trump “had abused his power of forgiveness inevitably rewarding his friends and tolerating corruption, and I deeply believe that this forgiveness sends the bad message at the wrong time.”
According to the Restoration of Rights project, forgiveness generally removes the bar with certain civil rights, including the vote, the service to a jury, the function of a public service, the possession of a firearm and the conservation of some licenses.
The Supreme Court of the State revoked the Blagojevich law license, however, a result that a forgiveness cannot reverse, according to the office of the Ministry of Justice of the Pardon lawyer.
The case of Blagojevich is also complicated by its indictment and its withdrawal from 2009 by the State Senate. The decision prevented him from taking office and last year, a The federal judge rejected Blagojevich’s trial Affirming that the prohibition has violated its constitutional rights and its voters.
A spokesperson for the State Council of Elections sought the effect of grace on this decree.
Blagojevich was sentenced for 18 counts. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals de l’US in Chicago in 2015 launched five of the convictions, including those in which he proposed to appoint someone to a well -paid job in the Senate.
Axios reported for the first time the news of forgiveness expected on Monday afternoon.
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Price reported in New York. The writer of Associated Press John O’Connor in Springfield, ill., Contributed to this report.
