Donald Trump’s Pardon Economy

“I have great respect for you,” Donald Trump told Rod Blagojevich. “I have great respect for your tenacity, for the fact that you just don’t give up. But, Rod, you’re fired.” It was April, 2010, week four of the third season of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” and Blagojevich, the pugnacious former governor of Illinois, had bungled the assignment: to design a promotional campaign for a new Harry Potter exhibit at Universal Studios. In truth, Blagojevich had bigger things to worry about. He was broke—hence the “Celebrity Apprentice” gig. More worrisome, he was about to stand trial on corruption charges, for, among other things, trying to profit from naming Barack Obama’s replacement in the Senate. Blagojevich was ultimately convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He served eight of them, until Trump, in his first term as President, commuted his sentence. Blagojevich, a Democrat, had launched a lobbying blitz and received support from Jesse Jackson, Rudy Giuliani, and the legal scholar Alan Dershowitz. A full pardon came later, at the start of Trump’s second term. The weekend after the Inauguration, the President “called me on a Saturday night to say he’s gonna pardon me,” Blagojevich said. Speaking with me recently, he