Some of the state’s top politicians on Thursday expressed that they weren’t pleased that President Donald Trump is considering shortening the prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Trump said Wednesday night he was considering “very strongly” commuting the sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving a 14-year sentence in a federal prison for corruption.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One as they flew back to Washington from El Paso, Texas, the president said he was open to giving Blagojevich, 62, a break. Trump said he knew he was making news with his comments, saying, “That’s a pretty big story.”
“The governor has said he believes the former governor is in prison, where he belongs,” Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said in a statement. “The president should instead focus his attention on the critical issues facing this country, like gun safety.”
Pritzker spent weeks last year during his gubernatorial campaign trying to steer clear of the disgraced former governor — and apologizing to the African-American community for comments he’s heard making to Blagojevich on wiretapped FBI conversations.
Pritzker was recorded discussing potential African-American politicians to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by then-President elect Barack Obama, with Pritzker referring to Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White as “the “least offensive” who would cover the governor on “the African-American thing.” Pritzker also dismissed former state Senate President Emil Jones as too “crass” for the appointment.
Pritzker repeatedly acknowledged he made a mistake, saying his “intentions were good” but that he “didn’t use the right words.”
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin on Thursday said Blagojevich was “deservedly convicted,” saying his attempt to shakedown a Children’s Memorial Hospital head for campaign contributions is “as low as one can get.”
Durkin, R-Western Springs, served as the leading Republican in the Illinois House of Representatives Special Investigation Committee, which impeached Blagojevich in 2008. And he’s never been in favor of a pardon or commutation.
Trump’s commutation would come in the midst of a federal investigation into wide-ranging political corruption in Illinois.
“I guess it just sends a message that if you’re a kind of character and you’ve been turned into a folk hero by the president and other groups within the United States, that you have a good shot at not serving your sentence and paying your debt to society,” Durkin said of Trump’s potential clemency.
Durkin, too, noted the timing of Trump’s remarks, at the heels of a weekend of mass shootings: “Nothing surprises me. I think people are going to make their own judgment on it, but a lot of decisions are being made for politics at the moment and not for the good of society.”
In a statement, Senate President John Cullerton said: “With a unanimous vote the Illinois Senate removed him from office and barred him from ever serving here again, and there’s not a damn thing Donald Trump can do about that.”
Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan did not immediately return a request for comment.
Blagojevich is not due out of prison until May 2024. Although an appellate court tossed five of his convictions in 2015, federal prosecutors say he remains convicted “of the same three charged shakedowns” for which he was first sentenced in 2011.
