Trump Pardons Rod Blagojevich, the Former Illinois Governor

President Trump signed a full pardon on Monday for Rod R.Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who was convicted of corruption in 2011 in a scheme to sell a Senate seat being vacated by Barack Obama.“It’s my honor to do it,” Mr.

Trump said in the Oval Office of the pardon.“I’ve watched him.

He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people that I had to deal with.”Mr.Blagojevich, who served as Illinois governor from 2003 to 2009, did not immediately comment.The pardon was the latest overture between the president and the former governor, who is still known in Chicago simply as “Blago.” Just five years ago, Mr.

Trump commuted Mr.Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence, allowing him to be released from a Colorado prison after eight years and return to his family home on the North Side of Chicago.“It’s been a long, long journey,” Mr.

Blagojevich said in February 2020, speaking to reporters from his front door as he repeatedly dabbed his face with a handkerchief.“I’m bruised, I’m battered and I’m bloody.” (He had nicked himself shaving, unaccustomed to standard razors while in prison.)The former governor insisted then that he had broken no laws and that he was the victim of an overzealous Justice Department during the Obama administration.

Federal prosecutors said Mr.Blagojevich’s conduct — trying to benefit from the appointment of a Senate seat, among other actions — was so abysmal that it “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.”But he found a sympathetic audience in Mr.

Trump.While Mr.

Blagojevich was awaiting trial 15 years ago, he made appeals to Mr.Trump, appearing on “The Celebrity Apprentice” when Mr.

Trump was the host.And Mr.

Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, spoke on Fox News while her husband was in prison, a move that seemed calculated to grab Mr.Trump’s attention.Mr.

Blagojevich was the fourth governor of Illinois in recent decades to serve time in prison, in a state that has se...