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Durbin says he’d support move by Trump to commute Blagojevich’s sentence

June 4, 2018 at 2:26 p.m. EDT
Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) talks to reporters on Capitol Hill earlier this year. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said Monday that he would support a move by President Trump to commute the prison sentence of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.

Trump last week said he is considering a commutation of the Democrat’s 14-year sentence for convictions in 2010 related to trying to sell President Barack Obama’s Senate seat, among other campaign finance violations.

“I think that the sentence imposed on Rod Blagojevich was definitely way too long,” Durbin told reporters in Chicago. “Fourteen years, it didn’t make sense.”

The senator from Illinois said he would not comment on Blagojevich’s culpability but said he believes the length of his sentence was “outrageous.”

“If there’s a way to reduce the sentence for him and his family, I would support it,” Durbin said. “I’ll let President Trump make that decision, but I certainly think 14 years was entirely too long.”

Blagojevich, 61, is not due to be released from prison until May 2024.

Trump pardons conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza, suggests others also could receive clemency

Trump raised the possibility of commuting Blagojevich’s sentence last week as he discussed his decision to pardon conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza for a 2014 campaign finance conviction.

Trump said he is considering using his clemency powers in several other cases, including that of Martha Stewart, the television personality and lifestyle mogul who was convicted in 2004 of obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a well-timed stock sale.

Blagojevich was a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, after he was indicted but before his convictions. Trump praised Blagojevich at the time as having “a lot of guts” to appear on the program.

Blagojevich has failed to persuade the Supreme Court to review his conviction and sentence, most recently in April. Trump’s solicitor general, Noel Francisco, advised the court not to take the case, saying a review was “unwarranted.”

In a statement last week, Len Goodman, an attorney for Blagojevich, said he was grateful that Trump understood the “unfairness” of his client’s case. “It’s time for Rod Blagojevich to come home to his wife and daughters,” Goodman said.

Durbin is not the only Democrat to question the length of Blagojevich’s sentence.

Former attorney general Eric Holder, who is considering a 2020 presidential bid, told an audience in New Hampshire last week that he thought the sentence was excessive.