Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) commented on the indictment of former President Donald Trump and suggested that Trump is being targeted by the establishment because “he won’t do things their way.”
Blagojevich stated that Trump is facing an indictment because “he’s challenging the establishment.”
“It’s very simple. It’s because he’s challenging the establishment. He won’t play ball, he won’t do things their way,” he said. “He’s approaching government and doing things differently. And as a result of that, he’s a threat not only to the Democrats, but he threatens the traditional Washington, DC, elite country club Republicans.”
“This is what happens when you truly take on the establishment. This is what happens when you truly are out there. Keeping your promises to the people, shake things up. And I think the political cynics, which is most of the people in that business, were surprised that when Trump actually won, he actually was doing the things he said he was going to do when he was running,” he continued. “They just think when you say those things, this is just the stuff you say to get elected.”
Blagojevich went on to talk about his own experience of being imprisoned for eight years, saying that he was jailed for “non-existent crimes for politics.”
“I was in prison for eight years for non-existent crimes, for politics, for discussing a potential political deal that began because Obama sent an emissary to me to talk about that deal. Now, he didn’t do anything wrong, but neither did I,” Blagojevich said. “And then they kept me in prison.”
He explained that Americans should not have “our elected officials stolen from us for things that aren’t crimes.”
“And so my argument to anybody who’s willing to listen is this is not a partisan issue. It shouldn’t be Republicans versus Democrats … should be, you know, an American issue, a we the people issue, not having our elected officials stolen from us for things that aren’t crimes, you get a corrupt politician who has taken cash or something that’s a different story, by all means, you know, put them in prison or they’re benefiting at some insider stock trading or something, whatever that might be. But that’s not was. That wasn’t the case with me. It’s not the case of Trump,” Blagojevich said.
Blagojevich believes the political establishment used his imprisonment as a “test case” before trying to jail a former president.
