Disgraced former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he’s a proud traitor who supports former Republican President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
“I call myself a ‘Trump supporter’ … His new Republican Party is now the party that will run and fight for the average American worker,” the convicted Blagojevich said in an interview on 770 WABC on Sunday. “Cat Roundtable”
But Blagojevich, known in political circles as “Blago,” also said he was personally paying back Trump, who in February 2020 commuted the 14-year sentence he was serving on political corruption charges after he was accused of selling the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, who was elected president in 2008, to the highest bidder.
He maintained that his actions were not criminal, and President Obama refused to commute his sentence.
Trump, who had Blagojevich appear on his “Apprentice” show before running for president, released him.
“Who would have thought that a Republican president, Donald Trump, a Democratic governor, would rescue me, give me back my freedom and reunite me with my two daughters and my wife, Patti,” Blagojevich said.
The governor reflected on his past legal troubles and said he was the first governor in the United States to endorse Obama.
“He and I got into politics at the same time in Chicago in the mid-1990s. I became governor. He became a senator two years later,” he said.
“Then he became president-elect, and he sent emissaries to me, the union boss, to discuss a political deal in exchange for the appointment of a senatorial candidate. [Obama] “It’s not something I wanted to do. There was nothing illegal on Mr. Obama’s part. And there was nothing illegal on my part. But he was in the White House for eight years. And I was in the Big House for eight years.”
He joked that it would be “much better” to be governor than “Prisoner Number 40892424.”
“I fought back. What they did to me was the beginning of what they’re doing to President Trump… They learned from what they did. [to me] “And what they did with impunity? They weaponized prosecutors and criminalized things that are legal and everyday in the political world,” Blagojevich said.
He urged Americans to “vote this election to stop the weaponization of prosecution. They are destroying the rule of law and the Constitution. This is the politics of Russia, the Soviet Union, and banana republics. This is not the politics that Abraham Lincoln described as ‘the last hope on earth’ – in other words, not a politics where the people have the right to choose for themselves.” [leaders] It should be a free and fair election,” Blago said.
Blagojevich, meanwhile, said he had no doubt that Obama was using his considerable influence within the Democratic Party to try to remove Biden, 81, who served as vice president for eight years, from the running rather than helping him run for reelection.
“President Obama is using his influence, which is very influential within the Democratic Party, behind the scenes with a group of very influential Democratic supporters, like movie stars, people like George Clooney,” he said.
“he [Obama] Democrats are so afraid of Trump beating Biden that they are doing everything they can to encourage Biden to drop out of the race because they feel they have a better chance of winning without Biden…. Harry Truman, one of the great Democratic presidents, used to say, ‘If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.’ This is just another example of how cutthroat politics are, and how betrayal is often the rule rather than the exception.”
