How Patti Blagojevich helped earn her husband's release

CHICAGO — For most of her time as Illinois first lady, Patti Blagojevich preferred a behind-the-scenes role, advising her husband on myriad topics while building a real estate career that leaned heavily on the couple's clout.

But since her husband's arrest nearly a dozen years ago, Blagojevich has commanded the spotlight as she has done almost anything — from eating bugs on reality television to courting President Donald Trump — to help win her husband's freedom. She has made scores of public pleas on his behalf over the past decade on television and social media, usually painting her family as the victims of overzealous prosecutors and political enemies.

And in many of her carefully crafted pleas, only President Trump had the brains and the bravado to remedy the perceived injustice.

"They are trying to undo elections and play politics instead of doing what they are supposed to do," she said on Fox News in 2018. "It takes a strong leader like President Trump to right these wrongs."

Her constant flattery proved successful Tuesday, as Trump commuted Rod Blagojevich's 14-year prison sentence and cleared the way for him to leave prison four years early. In a clear nod that Patti Blagojevich's messages were received, the president complimented her resolve several months ago.

"I watched his wife, on television, saying that the young girls' father has been in jail for now seven years, and they've never seen him outside of an orange uniform. You know, the whole thing," Trump told reporters in August on Air Force One. "His wife, I think, is fantastic. And I'm thinking about commuting his sentence very strongly. I think he was — I think it's enough: seven years. I'm very impressed with his family. I'm very impressed with his wife. I mean, she has lived for this. She has — she's one hell of a woman. She has lived. She goes on and she makes her case. And it's really very sad."

The president again mentioned the family's struggles Tuesday as he announced the commutation. He spoke about the Blagojevich daughters growing older and missing important time with their father.

"I watched his wife on television. … They rarely get to see their father outside of an orange uniform," Trump said. "I saw that and I did commute his sentence so he'll be able to go back home with his family."

Patti Blagojevich — a daughter of the Chicago Democratic machine — learned quickly that the best way to reach the Republican president was to lavish praise on him while appearing on Fox News. The offspring and wife of deft politicians, she stroked the president's ego during each appearance, expressing her gratitude to him and recalling how "kind" he was to her family when the former governor appeared on "The Celebrity Apprentice."

"I don't think there's a better way to get a message to (Trump)," Rod Blagojevich's former defense attorney Aaron Goldstein told the Tribune last year. "She's doing what she needs to do to get a message in front of him and she is doing a great job of it."

Patti Blagojevich did not speak to the media camped outside her Ravenswood Manor home Tuesday but tweeted that there would be a news conference at the home Wednesday morning, after her husband was released Tuesday night from a prison in Colorado.

In pleading her position, Patti Blagojevich consistently described her family's plight in terms that would appeal to Trump, specifically criticizing former FBI Director James Comey and special counsel Robert Mueller for their roles in both the Russian election interference probe and her husband's conviction. She also tweeted opinion pieces, including one written by her husband from prison, opposing Trump's impeachment and accusing the U.S. Justice Department of overzealous, politically driven prosecutions.

"I see that these same people that did this to my family, (who) secretly taped us, twisted the facts, perverted the law (and put) my husband in jail — these people are trying to do it on a larger scale (to Trump)," she said in 2018 on "The Story With Martha MacCallum" on Fox News.

Trump repeated the allegation Tuesday, suggesting the Mueller investigation was led by the "same group" that secured the ex-governor's conviction.

Mueller was head of the FBI during the Blagojevich probe, though then-U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey made the decision to tap the governor's phones. Comey was U.S. deputy attorney general when the investigation into Blagojevich's administration began, but he moved to the private sector in 2005 and played no role in Blagojevich's indictment.

"It's inaccurate," Robert Grant, who headed the FBI's Chicago office during the investigation, said of Trump's allegation. "Patti has been very effective in repeating that conspiracy on television. She knows it gets under his skin."

History, however, has mattered little during this unorthodox clemency process, which began in 2018 after Trump told reporters he was considering commuting Blagojevich's sentence and suggested the disgraced governor shouldn't have gone to jail for "being stupid." It was a highly unusual statement for a sitting president to make, in large part because Blagojevich's legal team had not yet requested a pardon and the U.S. Department of Justice had not made a recommendation.

Regardless, Patti Blagojevich already had made several appearances on Fox News by that time to plead for her husband's freedom.

"She knew the right button to push," said former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Cramer, who is now managing director for the Berkeley Research Group. "And in this case, the only button was Fox News. She did what a spouse would do in this case: You go on Fox, you blame Mueller and Comey and you hope no rational person looks into it."

(Chicago Tribune's Javonte Anderson contributed.)

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