Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) on Tuesday praised President Trump, saying the president has saved “millions of lives” with his response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Blagojevich was recently pardoned by Trump after serving 14 years in prison on corruption charges and attempting to sell former President Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
Blagojevich cautioned the president to monitor localities and mayors for enacting restrictive social distancing measures, citing his own accounts of witnessing abuses of power, according to the Washington Times.
Blagojevich celebrated Attorney General William Barr over his direction to lead U.S. attorneys to watch for local government coronavirus policies that could infringe on constitutional rights such as the freedom of speech, religion, or economic liberties.
“Undoubtedly, the local officials in question are motivated by good intentions, but the overzealous practices of some of them are wrongheaded and dangerous,” the former governor wrote in a letter to Trump. “If they can continue to ‘go too far,’ as Attorney General [Willaim] Barr has recently pointed out, they will be like an untreated tumor, continue to spread — killing our freedoms.”
The former governor added his own opinions on Chicago’s police enforcement during the outbreak, calling it “another excuse to justify policing in predominantly black and brown communities.”
Blagojevich went on to compare New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D-N.Y.) directive for neighbors to report lockdown violators to a “snitch hotline,” according to the report.
In Blagojevich’s home state of Illinois, a state lawmaker has won a battle to block a 30-day extension of Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order.
A judge ruled that the governor’s extension was an overstep of authority, although Pritzker appealed the decision on Tuesday, citing it would put Illinois citizens at risk.