President Trump on Tuesday commuted former Illinois Governor Rod “Blago” Blagojevich’s sentence.
Blago was prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison for trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat.
President Trump commuted Blago’s sentence after he served more than 7 years in prison.
The President on Tuesday told reporters that he felt Blago served enough time and he should be back with his children who are getting older.
“We have commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich,” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews. “He served 8 years in jail — it’s a long time and I watched his wife on television…”
“It was a prosecution by the same people — Comey, Fitzpatrick — the same group,” Trump said.
Robert Mueller was the Director of the FBI when Blago was wiretapped by the FBI in 2008 and ultimately sentenced to prison in 2012.
Comey was nominated by Obama to be the Director of the FBI in 2013, however he was still connected to Blago’s indictment.
Patrick Fitzgerald, who Trump referred to as “Fitzpatrick,” was the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois who indicted Blago in 2008.
In 2003, Fitzgerald was appointed by then-DAG James Comey to be a special prosecutor to investigate the Valerie Plame affair.
Fitzgerald is also godfather to one of Comey’s children so they were very closely connected.
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
Barack Obama was up to his ears in this scandal and 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.
