Donald Trump has spent most of his political career asserting that the Department of Justice — even when it was his administration in power — was being weaponized against him.
When Trump criticized then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russian interference investigation in 2017, he declared there was a “witch hunt” being executed against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. That language became more explicit after Trump left office in 2021, and more frequent as the criminal prosecutions against him unfurled.
By the time Republicans took control of the House in 2023, the accusations of “lawfare” were part of the Trump brand. His congressional allies put former Representative Kevin McCarthy in a bind demanding he allow for the creation of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government or risk the speakership.
But Rod Blagojevich told Newsweek, “It all started with me.”
Better known in political circles as “Blago,” the former Democratic governor of Illinois said the “weaponization” of the DOJ dates back to 2008, when federal prosecutors led by Patrick Fitzgerald—an acolyte of former FBI Director James Comey who was appointed U.S. Attorney by former President George W. Bush—indicted him on charges of corruption after he was caught on federal wiretap attempting to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, who had just been elected to the White House.
“I didn’t break a single law. I didn’t cross a line. I never took a penny, no one even said I did,” he said in an interview on Thursday. “It was all politics. Political conversations that were initiated by then-President-elect Obama to talk a political deal for the appointment of the U.S. Senator. He didn’t do anything wrong, neither did I.”
In 2010, an Illinois jury found Blagojevich guilty on 17 felony counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy and attempted extortion. Two years later, he began a fourteen-year prison sentence that Trump would go on to commute in February 2020.
“When they got away with doing it to a Democratic governor in the fifth-largest state, they got emboldened,” Blagojevich said. “Some of the same people involved in this stuff—Patrick Fitzgerald and James Comey—are very tight. They felt that if they can do it to [me], they can take it to the next level and start doing it to a president and then, a presidential candidate.”
Blagojevich said while there’s a “very strong” partisan component to the alleged weaponization of the federal government, he argues federal prosecutors are also largely driven by a desire for personal career advancement, regardless of which party is in power.
“To make a big name for yourself,” he said, noting that the attorneys who prosecuted his case would go on to become “partners of big law firms, making millions of dollars. One of them became a judge. Some of them had political aspirations. Some of them go on to CNN.”
Fitzgerald started his career as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York — often referred to as the “Sovereign District of New York” for its power and influence — before moving on to become U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, which includes Chicago.
Fitzgerald led a number of high-profile cases as a federal prosecutor, including securing the convictions of Blagoveich and his predecessor, Republican Illinois Governor George Ryan, media mogul Conrad Black and several aides to Chicago mayor Richard Daley before moving on to private practice (where he notably represented Comey after Trump ousted him).
Fitzgerald once called Blagojevich’s actions in office so disgraceful he “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.”
Since he was released from prison nearly five years ago, Blagojevich has become a strong supporter of Trump, regularly defending him on social media against what he had others have termed “lawfare” directed at the president-elect. His relationship with Trump dates back to when Blagojevich starred on “The Celebrity Apprentice” while under indictment and after he was twice impeached. It was an appearance that Trump said took “tremendous courage and guts” while predicting that the former governor would be a breakout star on his show. Trump ultimately “fired” him in the fourth season.
More than a decade later, Trump would commute Blagojevich’s sentence, calling the punishment “a tremendously powerful ridiculous sentence in my opinion.” Blagojevich would come out of jail a self-described “Trumpocrat,” his nickname for Democrats who supports Trump. In July, he attended the Republican National Convention in support of Trump.
“How can I not support a guy who freed me from the condition I was in? I’d like to be more than a single-issue voter, but you get me out of jail, you’re likely to get my vote,” he said. “But my support for Trump is far more than that.”
Blagojevich believes he and Trump are on the same side: The voters who supported his gubernatorial bid are the people who voted for Trump in last month’s presidential election, he said.
“[Trump] is leading a historical political realignment in America, and traditional Democrat, working-class voters who were my political vein [are now Trump’s],” Blagojevich said.
And now, the disgraced Democrat thinks Trump has the opportunity to “go down history as one of our greatest presidents” — if he can reform the justice system.
“I spent 2,896 days—eight years—in prison for politics,” Blagojevich said. “I got to meet a lot of guys, prison criminals, drug dealers, bank robbers, some men who committed burglary, all kinds of crimes, and in most cases, probably, they did it. But I saw a broken criminal justice system because of the sentencing. It’s harsh and cruel and doesn’t really go away. It prevents people from having a second chance.”
“I think it’s the greatest constitutional crisis in America since the Civil War, and I’m hopeful that President Trump and his new administration will reform the system and make it so that prosecutors cannot become political power centers,” he continued. “Their job is to do justice and to go after real crimes and to stay out politics.”
As Trump promises to remake the DOJ under his attorney general-designate, Pam Bondi, and FBI director-designate Kash Patel, many Democrats fear he will go after his own perceived enemies for retribution. While on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to investigate, prosecute, imprison or punish his opponents.
In TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” interview with Trump, the president-elect was asked if he had discussed the prosecution of his political rivals with Bondi. Trump said he had not spoken with Bondi and that the investigation of those individuals would be “up to her.”
Asked whether the fears surrounding Trump’s DOJ were warranted, Blagojevich brushed them off and chalked it up to “projection by the very people who have been doing it.”
“They’re fearful there could be a reckoning for their abuse and for their misery, their misdeeds,” he said. “I truly believe—that’s the great irony—God willing, he will do something about this. Not to be vengeful, but to seek justice and to reform a system that is broken and has become political.”
Blagojevich also suggested that while he could not fault President Joe Biden for pardoning his son Hunter earlier this month, he called it hypocritical for Biden to do so because he had watched the criminal cases against Trump play out.
“If I was in the same place, I’d have done the same thing for my son,” he said.
But, he added, “Biden was happy to weaponize the Department Justice against Trump. Some of that came back against his son.”
The post Rod Blagojevich: Weaponization of Justice ‘Started With Me’ appeared first on Newsweek.
