Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich denounced former President Barack Obama as a “threat to democracy” and blamed him for President Biden dropping out of the presidential race.
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Blagojevich said Mr. Biden was the victim of the “old-school way of Chicago backroom politics.”
“Mr. Obama was the conductor of the band that successfully orchestrated the removal of the presidential candidate chosen by more than 14 million Democratic primary voters — to be replaced by someone he and the party bosses choose instead. It’s classic ward-boss tactics,” he said.
“It isn’t Donald Trump who is an existential threat to our democracy,” he said. “It’s Barack Obama.”
Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat who served as governor from 2003 to 2009, said he’s known Mr. Obama for nearly 30 years, and they both grew up in Chicago politics.
“We understand how it works — with the bosses over the people. Mr. Obama learned the lessons well,” he said. “And what he just did to Mr. Biden is what political bosses have been doing in Chicago since the 1871 fire — selections masquerading as elections.”
In the column, the former Illinois governor related the dynamic between Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden to what he experienced in 2009 when the state legislature impeached him and removed him from office, which he said was orchestrated from “conversations initiated by Mr. Obama himself.”
“A common element in my case and now Mr. Biden’s is Mr. Obama’s involvement,” he said. “He’s the central figure who played a behind-the-scenes role in both stories.”
Mr. Blagojevich was impeached and removed on corruption charges related to his solicitation of bribes to try to “sell” the U.S. Senate seat Mr. Obama left open when he was elected president.
He was sentenced to 14 years in prison on related federal bribery charges in 2011. Former President Trump commuted Mr. Blagojevich’s prison sentence in 2020.
In his Monday op-ed, Mr. Blagojevich said rich donors such as Mr. Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Hollywood and Silicon Valley elites, “are the new bosses of today’s Democratic Party.”
“All along, Mr. Biden and the Democratic politicians have been claiming that this year’s presidential race is about ‘saving democracy.’ They are the biggest hypocrites in American political history,” he wrote. “The party that says it is running to save democracy has already deployed the criminal-justice system against the leading candidate of the opposition party. And now they have successfully maneuvered to dump their duly elected candidate for president.”
He also accused Democrats of covering up Mr. Biden’s unfitness for “a long time.”
He said the Democratic National Convention next month “will provide the perfect backdrop and place for Mr. Obama to finish the job and choose his candidate, not the voters’ candidate.”
“Democracy, no. Chicago ward-boss politics, yes,” he said.
Mr. Biden stepped down from the presidential race Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take over his spot on the Democratic ticket.
A growing number of lawmakers and well-known Democrats had been calling on him to pass the torch ever since his shaky debate performance in Georgia last month.
The Washington Times has reached out to Mr. Obama for comment.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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