By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Robert Grant, a longtime colleague and friend of special counsel Robert Mueller who headed the FBI’s Chicago office at the time of the Rod Blagojevich investigation, blasts President Donald Trump for suggesting he might commute the 14-year sentence of Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor.
He accuses Trump of acting out of spite against federal law enforcement and Mueller’s work as a special counsel, according to a report in Politico.
“It’s so disheartening to think that the president of the United States would overturn the evidence heard by a judge and jury, all out of an animus toward Bob Mueller, James Comey and [former U.S. Attorney] Pat Fitzgerald,” Grant, who is retired from the FBI, tells Politico. “Blagojevich got caught by wiretaps and microphones and he was engaging in a practice that we believed he was taking part in for quite awhile … I don’t think anybody who listened to those tapes would think anything but it was an incredibly corrupt governor who was dealing with corrupt associates.”
“So if Trump gets himself into an obstruction of justice case or lies, then that’s OK. But that’s not the case for the poor kid on the South Side,” Grant said. “I think [Trump] tries to hurt anybody he doesn’t like. He will use his office because he can. Not to use it judiciously, but out of spite and animus. When the framers of the Constitution framed that power, I don’t think they envisioned this.”
