Rod Blagojevich
President Trump commuted former Illinois Governor Rod “Blago” Blagojevich’s sentence, according to the New York Times.
President Trump previously floated the idea of commuting Blago’s sentence, claiming the charges against him were “unfair.”
“We’re looking at it,” he said. “I feel very badly. I think he was very harshly sentenced, but we’re looking at it very strongly. People feel very strongly about that. I floated it and I wanted to see where the Democrats stood, where the Republicans stood. People feel very strongly about Rod Blagojevich’s sentence. He’s been in there for seven and a half years. That’s a long time and what he did was terrible, but it’s a long time,” Trump previously said.
Blago’s wife has recently appeared on Fox News begging President Trump to pardon her husband after he has served more than 7 years of his 14 year sentence.
Recall, Blago was prosecuted and convicted for trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat.
Barack Obama lied when he denied having any knowledge of Blagojevich’s efforts to sell his Senate seat after he won the presidential election in 2008.
“I had no contact with the governor or his office and so we were not, I was not aware of what was happening,” President-elect Barack Obama said in a statement in December 2008.
But Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod contradicted Obama’s statements on Blago and his vacant senate seat.
“I know he’s talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names, many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them,” Axelrod said in November of 2008 in a media interview.
Axelrod then walked back his statement to cover for Barack Obama.
“I was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the President-elect has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did not then or at any time discuss the subject,” said Axelrod.
President Trump spoke to reporters on his decision to commute Blago.
WATCH:
JUST IN: Pres. Trump says he has commuted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's sentence, calling it a "tremendously powerful, ridiculous sentence," and claiming "it was a prosecution by the same people, Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group." https://t.co/9oQG09bxZA pic.twitter.com/KnBmMrJsEl
— ABC News (@ABC) February 18, 2020
