Next to the word “corruption” in the dictionary should be a photo of Rod Blagojevich. The former Illinois governor will go down in history for his brazen attempt to sell off a U.S. Senate seat like it was personal property, but that’s not as shocking as some of the other misdeeds that landed him in prison. Blagojevich is now suing to regain the right to run for political office in Illinois, which state legislators wisely took from him after his impeachment. If reform means anything in these politically troubled times, the courts will throw Blagojevich’s suit out immediately.
Blagojevich, a Democrat and a product of Chicago machine politics, took office in 2003 with a promise to reform Illinois government. He was convicted in 2011 on 17 federal charges, including wire fraud, attempted extortion, soliciting bribes and conspiracy. That he managed to get his 14-year prison sentence for corruption cut short in 2020 by a commutation from then-President Donald Trump, to whom Blagojevich regularly genuflects, is just one of the many examples of this man’s bottomless reservoir of self-serving hypocrisy.
The most sensational allegation was that, after the 2008 presidential election, Blagojevich plotted to receive something of value in exchange for his power to fill the vacant U.S. Senate seat of the new president-elect, Barack Obama. “I’ve got this thing and it’s [expletive] golden,” Blagojevich said, as federal investigators secretly listened in. “I’m not just giving it up for [expletive] nothing.” What a perfect encapsulation of this man’s view of public service.
