Former Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich joins Adam Goodman on 13th and Park for a raw and wide-ranging conversation tied to his forthcoming memoir, Framed, F*cked, and Freed. Blagojevich walks through the early morning of December 9, 2008, when a 24-member FBI SWAT team and a hostage negotiator arrived at his Chicago home to arrest a sitting governor, and he makes the case that what was done to him was a politically motivated abuse of prosecutorial power that later served as a blueprint for cases brought against Donald Trump.
Blagojevich reflects on what sustained him through 2,896 days in federal prison, including a higher-security facility where he served alongside Crips, Bloods, Gangster Disciples, and Sinaloa Cartel members. He describes reaching for his wife's Bible on his first night behind bars, reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, and finding unexpected humanity and inspiration in the people around him, from a former Las Vegas heroin kingpin he calls Mr. B to a lovable bank robber named Sox who paused his robbery to help a trembling elderly woman.
The conversation also covers Blagojevich's complicated relationship with both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, his time on Celebrity Apprentice, and the extraordinary loyalty of his wife Patty, who defied 9-to-1 Vegas odds by standing by him throughout the entire ordeal and eventually lobbied President Trump directly to secure his release. Blagojevich draws a direct line between his father's experience in a Nazi prisoner of war camp and his own refusal to accept a plea deal for crimes he insists he never committed.
Looking ahead, Blagojevich weighs in on Governor Pritzker's handling of the Chicago Bears relocation threat, the state of American political division, and his current work on behalf of Republika Srpska in Bosnia, a cause he describes as part of a larger, perhaps divinely guided, chapter of his life.
Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:20 Chicago Bears and Pritzker's Failure 3:09 The Book: Framed, F*cked, and Freed 6:23 The Arrest: December 9, 2008 9:30 Fighting Back Against the Government 11:20 Patty Blagojevich: Defying All Odds 14:26 The Bible and Viktor Frankl in Prison 17:07 Life Inside: Mr. B, Sox, and the Rockers 21:45 A Prosecutor Who Became the Prosecuted 24:43 Celebrity Apprentice and Trump's Pardon 29:42 The State of American Politics Today 31:17 Work in Republika Srpska 32:42 Closing Reflections
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