Rod Blagojevich: Weaponization of Justice ‘Started With Me’
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.”
Former Illinois governor and convicted felon Rod Blagojevich speaks to the press outside of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on August 02, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. Inset: President-Elect Donald Trump at the Embassy of the United Kingdom’s Residence on December 7, 2024 in Paris, France. Blagojevich spoke to Newsweek about the weaponization of the Department of Justice and his support for Trump.
Scott Olson/Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
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,...
