Illinois' delegation of House Republicans on Thursday urged President Donald Trump not to commute the sentence of Rod Blagojevich, the state's former governor, after the president told reporters he was considering doing so.
In a statement, Reps. Darin LaHood, John Shimkus, Adam Kinzinger, Rodney Davis and Mike Bost said that commuting Blagojevich's sentence "sets a dangerous precedent and goes against the trust voters place in elected officials."
"It's important that we take a strong stand against pay-to-play politics, especially in Illinois where four of our last eight Governors have gone to federal prison for public corruption," the congressmen wrote.
The state's Republican delegation previously wrote to Trump in June 2018, also to oppose a presidential commutation of Blagojevich's sentence. The Thursday statement renewed the call after Trump told reporters a day earlier that he felt Blagojevich's seven years in prison had been enough.
"I thought he was treated unbelievably unfairly," Trump said Wednesday. "He's been in jail for seven years over a phone call where nothing happens."
Blagojevich, a Democrat who served in the House before he was elected governor, was impeached and removed from office in 2009, and was later convicted on multiple charges of corruption, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. During his trial, a recorded phone conversation revealed him saying: "I've got this thing, and it's fucking golden. I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing." He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in a case that became a media frenzy. His family has tried multiple times to appeal the sentence.
Trump dismissed the phone call as "braggadocio" and nothing outside the norm of what has been said privately by several other elected officials.
On Thursday night, he tweeted that "many people" had asked him about commuting the sentence on account of its severity and that White House staff were looking into the matter. Prosecutors at the time of his trial argued that Blagojevich qualified for 30 years to life, but they recommended less time out of concern for his family.
As president, Obama declined to commute the sentence, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case on more than one occasion. Trump, however, has raised the possibility of commutation in the past.
In their 2018 letter opposing such a move, the Illinois Republicans — then including Peter Roskam and Randy Hultgren — said commuting the sentence would compromise trust in American democracy.
"As you well know, the integrity of our democracy and the core of American values depend on our elected officials being honest in upholding the trust given to them by the American people," the congressmen wrote at the time. "Granting clemency to Rod Blagojevich would go against this trust."
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