By Mark Vargas, Editor-in-Chief & Opinion Contributor
In August 2019, I was inside the lobby of a federal prison in Littleton, Colorado, waiting to bring former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich home.
The night before, in a hotel room barely a mile from the prison, I was preparing the clothes Rod would wear home after more than seven years behind bars.
Knowing television cameras from across the country would be focused on his release, I carefully ironed his pants and shirt and steamed his blazer. After everything his family had endured, I wanted him to walk out of that prison with dignity.
The next morning, I arrived at the prison, ready to bring him home.
Discharge processing had already begun. In his new bestselling memoir, Framed, F*cked, and Freed: A Governor’s Odyssey, Blagojevich recalls a prison officer stopping by his cell.
“Your guy is here to pick you up,” the officer told him. “We’ll call him when it’s time.”
I was his guy.
But the call never came.
As we waited, his wife Patti called the White House to find out why President Donald Trump’s anticipated commutation had been delayed.
What we were told was stunning.
The White House informed us that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker had personally called President Trump and urged him not to release Rod from prison.
Fox News reported at the time that Blagojevich had reached the prison’s discharge processing section – the final step before release – before the anticipated commutation was halted.
Days later, instead of boarding a plane to Chicago with Rod beside me, I boarded that flight alone.
Flying back to Chicago without him was one of the saddest days of my life. I had arrived carrying the clothes a father would wear home to his family. I left Denver knowing Patti and their two daughters would have to keep waiting.
After returning to Chicago, I began carrying Rod’s wallet in my back pocket every single day. Inside was his driver’s license, which had expired in 2012. It became a daily reminder of my promise to bring him home.
That wallet would remain in my back pocket until Rod finally came home.
Now, in his newly released memoir, Blagojevich alleges that Pritzker personally called Trump twice in August 2019, urging him not to commute his 14-year prison sentence.
For me, this was not a new revelation. It was consistent with what the White House told us that August day.
Six months later, on February 18, 2020, President Trump finally commuted Rod’s sentence.
I returned to Colorado. This time, the prison gates opened.
As we headed back to Chicago, I reached into my back pocket and handed Rod the wallet I had carried every day since that heartbreaking August trip.
Patti got her husband back. Their daughters got their father back. And I finally fulfilled my promise to bring Rod home.
But what the White House told us about Pritzker’s reported intervention fundamentally changed how I viewed the Illinois governor.
I came to believe political considerations had been placed ahead of a family that had already suffered enough.
Public service is about sacrifice – not sacrificing other people for your own political benefit.
I will never forget that flight home without Rod, or the lesson I took from that day.
Political power is temporary, but the consequences of how you use it can last a lifetime.
