WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has officially pardoned former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, according to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.

Scavino posted a video to X of President Trump signing an executive order. In the post, Scavino wrote, “Moments ago, President Trump signs a full and unconditional pardon for former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.”

WGN News was able to briefly catch up with Blagojevich outside his Ravenswood Manor home Monday afternoon to talk about the possibility of being pardoned.

“I’ll always be profoundly grateful to President Trump for everything he’s done for me and for my family. It’s everlasting gratitude,” Blagojevich said. “He’s a great guy and I think the world of him. I think he’s going to do great for America.”

According to the Restoration of Rights Project, a pardon typically removes the bar to certain civil rights, including voting, serving on a jury, running for public office, owning a gun and retaining certain licenses.

The state Supreme Court revoked Blagojevich’s law license, however. It’s an outcome a pardon can’t reverse, according to the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Blagojevich also carries the burden of impeachment by the state Senate in 2009—an action which, according to the state constitution, bars him from holding any state office.

Last year, a federal judge dismissed Blagojevich’s lawsuit claiming that the ban violated his and voters’ constitutional rights, but a spokesperson for the state Board of Elections said it’s unclear whether the pardon would clear the way for him to seek federal office.

Blagojevich was released from federal prison in Colorado in Feb. 2020 after then-President Trump commuted his sentence after eight of 14 years. He spoke to WGN News the night he was released at the airport ahead of a media frenzy on the way to and at his North Side home.

In 2018, the former Illinois governor filed paperwork to formally request clemency from Trump.

On Friday, Politico reported that Trump is considering nominating Blagojevich to become U.S. ambassador to Serbia.

Blagojevich’s parents immigrated from Serbia in the 1940s.

The former governor went to a federal judge last March in an effort to overturn his ineligibility to hold office.

“The case started with a megaphone, but it ends with a whimper. Sometimes cases in the federal courthouse attract publicity. But the courthouse is no place for a publicity stunt,” the judge wrote before closing the case with three sentences: “He wants back. But he’s already gone. Case dismissed.”

In an interview with WGN News a year after his prison release, Blagojevich stated no remorse.

“I didn’t break a single law or cross a single line,” he said.

Blagojevich was elected Governor of Illinois in 2002 and won re-election four years later, only for his political world to come crashing down in December 2008. That was when federal agents showed up at his front door and arrested him on a number of different political corruption charges.

Former head of the FBI’s field office in Chicago, Rob Grant, spoke with WGN News in 2019 about the day of Blagojevich’s arrest some 11 years earlier.

“My job was to wake him up and not create commotion. We were tying to do this quietly, in-obtrusively as possible and not disturb, too much, the daughters for sure,” Grant said.

Charges against Blagojevich included one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and one count of soliciting bribes. A part of sweeping allegations made against Blagojevich at the time included trying to shake down a Naperville children’s hospital CEO for campaign contributions and an effort made to sell Barack Obama’s old senate seat after he stepped down to become President of the United States.

“I have sympathy for the family saying he’s been in prison a long time, but he’s been in prison a long time for a very specific reason: Because he was very corrupt,” Grant said.

Then-U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald noted he found no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama during the government’s investigation into Blagojevich.

The Illinois General Assembly impeached Blagojevich and removed him from office in 2009, but it took two trials to convict him. The first jury was hung before he was eventually found guilty in 2011 and sentenced to 14 years in prison.