“I mean, I’ve got this thing, and it’s [expletive] golden. And I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing.” That was Rod Blagojevich, then governor of Illinois, talking about the power to name Barack Obama’s successor in the U.S. Senate. The FBI had the call on tape.
The Wiretaps
Blagojevich served as governor from 2003 to 2009. In 2008, federal prosecutors accused him of turning state government into a moneymaking operation for himself. Among other things, they said, he tried to shake down a children’s hospital and racetrack owners. When Obama’s seat fell vacant, the secretly recorded conversations became the heart of the Senate-seat charge.
Blagojevich’s answer was that he had only been horse-trading, the ordinary give and take of politics. His lawyers later told jurors the hours of wiretaps were just a politician who liked to think out loud. He also went on a national publicity tour to proclaim his innocence.
Removal and Two Trials
He was charged in December 2008. The Illinois legislature impeached him and the state Senate removed him in January 2009. An indictment followed later that year.
In 2010 he turned up on Donald Trump’s reality show Celebrity Apprentice, and was booted off. That summer, a jury convicted him on a single count of making false statements. On every other count, 23 in all, jurors hung and a mistrial was declared.
The retrial ended on June 27, 2011, after nine days of deliberation. Jurors found him guilty on 17 of 20 counts, including all 11 tied to the Senate seat. They acquitted him of soliciting bribes in the alleged shakedown of a road-building executive and deadlocked on an extortion charge in that same episode.
Blagojevich turned to his lawyer, Sheldon Sorosky, and asked: “What happened?” His wife, Patti, slumped against her brother and then rushed into his arms. Outside the courthouse he kept it short. “Among the many lessons I’ve learned from this whole experience is to try to speak a little bit less,” he told reporters. In December 2011 he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Clemency
He served eight of them. Trump commuted the sentence during his first term, and Blagojevich and Patti held a news conference afterward. He called himself a freed political prisoner and the justice system broken and unfair. “How do you properly thank someone who has given you back the freedom that was stolen from you?” he said of Trump, and he described himself as a “Trump-ocrat.”
Many leading Illinois Democrats and Republicans criticized the commutation. The state Republican chairman at the time said that in a state where corrupt machine politics is all too common, those found guilty should serve their full sentences.
In February 2025, Trump went further and granted a full pardon, calling the sentence a “terrible injustice” and Blagojevich a nice man.
Sources
- Rod Blagojevich found guilty of trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat
- Trump pardons disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich
- Rod Blagojevich corruption charges
Sources
- Rod Blagojevich found guilty of trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate …
- Blagojevich gets a pardon from President Trump : NPR
