Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Blagojevich -- What a Rod!


Rod Blagojevich has torn a page straight out of the Donald Trump playbook. After the president commuted the former Illinois governor's 14-year prison sentence for corruption, he characterized himself as a “political prisoner,” blaming his troubles on “those uncontrolled, unaccountable lawless prosecutors who did this to me. I broke no laws. I crossed no lines.”

Like Trump, he refuses to acknowledge facts and apparently subscribes to the notion that if he repeats his lies often enough and loudly enough, they'll eventually find currency as facts. At least, one would suppose, with enough morons to buy his eventual book or watch his eventual reality TV show.

More disturbingly, he says the above-mentioned “lawless prosecutors” are the same people who are trying to undermine his savior-in-chief, calling himself a “Trumpocrat.” Given Trump's bald transactional worldview, it seems probable that, whether Blagojevich believes it or not, taking this particular angle with his claim of innocence was likely a condition of Trump's pardon.

If the . . . flimsy, unlawful standard that was applied to me were to be applied to everybody else in politics, every senator, every congressman, every mayor, every governor would have been sent to prison as I've been,” he claimed. He went on to say, “The very same people who did it to me, many of them have been trying to do to President Trump. They turned things, they're routine and legal, and they suddenly say they're illegal.”

For his part, the president tweeted, “Rod Blagojevich did not sell the Senate seat. He served 8 years in prison, with many remaining. He paid a big price. Another Comey and gang deal!” U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was the lead prosecutor in Blagojevich's case – and former FBI Director Jim Comey hired Fitzgerald as his personal attorney after the president fired him.

Good god! A day out of jail and Blago has already hit “11” on the insufferable meter.

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