Perhaps the biggest lesson from the corruption scandal involving former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is that "you never know who's listening to your telephone conversations," the former politician's brother, Robert Blagojevich, told
Newsmax TV on Thursday.
"If they have an agenda to get you as, in the United States government and its U.S. attorney, they will take random snippets of conversations and make a federal case out of it because they have an agenda," Blagojevich told "Newsmax Now" host Miranda Khan. "To me, my brother was a victim of that, as was I, but I prevailed fortunately in trial and he didn't."
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Blagojevich is the author of a new book,
"Fundraiser A: My Fight for Freedom and Justice." He worked for his brother, a Democrat who is now serving 14 years in federal prison on corruption charges, as his fund-raiser for four months.
In 2010, Robert Blagojevich was on trial with his brother for offenses related to the soliciting of bribes for political appointments, including the 2008 vacant Senate seat of then-President-Elect Barack Obama.
"During the four months that I was there, 50 days of those four months, we were wiretapped," he told Khan. "Throughout the entire time that I did fund-raise, people nibbled around me, looking for something in exchange, a governmental action in exchange for campaign contribution. A quid pro quo.
"That was something that I very clearly communicated to each and every one who approached me that way — and even the government who eavesdropped on us knew what kind of a person I was, how ethical and proper I was in dealing with those approaches, because they happened all the time."
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