Two political scientists, partnering with Boise State Public Radio, are deep-diving into political corruption with a new podcast, and their first episode deals with former governor Rod Blagojevich.
WVIK spoke with Charlie Hunt and Jaci Kettler, who broke down the case involving the now-pardoned governor.
Below is our full interview:
Brady Johnson: Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to speak with me. What about former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s misdeeds interested you in covering it for a full episode on your podcast Scandalized?
Charlie Hunt: I think the decision to lead with Blagojevich was kind of an easy one in a lot of ways. I think number one just because he's such a character, he continues to be such a character. It's a scandal that is recent enough that I think a lot of people have heard of it and probably a lot of folks in your neck of the woods certainly remember Blagojevich but we thought of it as an opportunity to go a little deeper on a scandal that a lot of people probably thought they had figured out or thought they understood what was happening but where we were able to maybe provide a little more nuance and kind of academic and political science backing than was maybe previously or covered at the time. So I think, you know, there was an opportunity for education, which is always something Jaci and I are looking for, and then I think also, you know, a sheer entertainment factor with Blagojevich just because he was so out there in so many ways and so outspoken.
Jaci Kettler: Yeah, I think the outrageousness of some of what happened as well was kind of a fun way to start but also provide some insights into why do we care about political scandals, what's the concern here and what can it help us better understand about American politics today.
Johnson: For listeners who were too young when it was occurring and for residents who moved in since he left office, what is the crux of his corruption that was covered in the episode?
Hunt: Well, with Blagojevich, I mean, there was a whole swath of corruption that we talk about a little bit in the episode and a lot of different sort of schemes around misuse of state government money or, rather, sort of soliciting campaign contributions in exchange, for example, favorable government contracts, state government contracts. This was initially what got Blagojevich into some trouble as well as some of troubling initial hiring practices when he got into office. This was a lot of the stuff that ended up not flying under the radar but is what led the authorities basically to investigate him further to eventually wiretap his phone. Then eventually learn of the main crime that he ended up being indicted for attempting to sell the open senate seat that was created in Illinois after Barack Obama who was of course a U.S. senator at the time was elected president. Blagojevich as the governor was in charge of appointing Obama's replacement and essentially tried to sell the seat to the highest bidder basically to try to either get his kind of political ticket out of town or to try to reap the most benefit as possible for this senate seat and you know the FBI heard everything by wiretapping his phones and eventually moved in and arrested him.
Johnson: You mentioned in the episode he considered appointing himself; I'm curious is that even legal? Has that been tried in other states?
Kettler: This is a pointed discussion that comes up sometimes, right? Can you appoint yourself to a seat? I can't remember right now. Charlie, do you remember if it's legal? I don't think that there is anything against it.
Hunt: No, I don't think it is against the law. It's just one of those things that's so politically toxic of a move that you wouldn't think anyone would ever try it. But at this point, Blagojevich was pretty desperate. And so maybe that's why his head was in that space, that his political situation was really dire. He had horrible approval ratings at the time because of all these other investigations that have piled up. And so maybe he was that desperate at the time. But legally speaking, I don't see why he wouldn't be eligible for the seat.
Kettler: It's just generally politically, perhaps not the best move, given that voters may have some concerns about using a vacancy in that way to kind of benefit yourself.
Johnson: Thank you so much. I know at another point in the episode, you guys mentioned that Blagojevich considered becoming the Health and Human Services secretary. I'm curious about RFK Jr being the nominee for this position, and he ran against Trump in the last election. Can you help listeners understand what I am assuming here is a common practice of elected officials to choose friends and colleagues to fill cabinet and ambassadorship positions?
Hunt: I think there are a couple of different elements here. I mean, you do if you're an incoming president, right, you want to appoint cabinet officials who are really important members of the administration who, you know, probably by and large align with your viewpoints and who are going to be effective at executing the will of the president that any president would want that. But at the same time, you also want to not have to fight so, so hard for your nominees. Right. You don't want them to be politically toxic. And I think, you know, that's potentially one thing Kennedy has in common with Blagojevich had he been had he been nominated by Obama. I don't think there was I mean, we talked about this in the episode. I don't think there was ever really much chance that Obama was going to nominate Blagojevich to such an important position. This is not like an ambassadorship to some small country that, you know, doesn't have complicated relationships with us. This is you are in charge of basically running the U.S. health system. This is not a small post. And so this is not something you just give away to your friends or at least maybe we can say it's not something you should just give away to your friend. At the same time, it is important to have a good relationship with your cabinet. And so, you know, I think, you know, if there if there is that alignment there, then that is a good thing to have.
Johnson: At another point in the episode, you guys talk about the term "going public" with Blagojevich going on a media spree frenzy. Would you know where that term orginated from or other officials using the same process?
Kettler: I don't know for sure where the term originated. I don't know about you Charlie.
Hunt: Yeah. I mean, I associate it with the Samuel Kernell book called Going Public. That is sort of the academic instance where it originated, at least for me, but I'm not sure if it was a term before that. But certainly plenty of presidents and governors in particular have used this kind of method in the past.
Johnson: Was there a part of Blagojevich's story that you wished you included in the episode, or could be its own episode entirely?
Kettler: Oh, man. We recorded it a while ago, so I don't really remember. I do feel like, Charlie, you had to cut a lot from the episode.
Hunt: Oh, yeah. Our first cut of this episode was like an hour and a half long. So we ended up having to cut it by half. There were a lot of little little kinds of tidbits. I mean, I think with Blagojevich, there is so much we could have explored in his time after he served as governor, after he got caught. You know, he had the time period between when he was indicted, which was in December of 2008, and when he actually went to prison, which I think was in 2011 or 2012. You know, he has this period of, you know, as we said, going public, trying to appeal to the public and stay in office. He's not successful. He's impeached and removed. And he's kind of shunted out of public life. But he keeps going on talk shows and game shows. He goes on Donald Trump's reality show, The Celebrity Apprentice and, you know, unfortunately loses. But, you know, I think a lot of that post-governorship period before he goes to prison is, you know, a time when he is trying to rehabilitate his public image, where he's trying to, you know, figure out what he wants to do. But then he kind of does think maybe up until the moment he's actually sentenced, maybe he won't go to prison, but then he does. So, I mean, we could have done an entire episode, I think, on just what happens after he's indicted. But, you know, there's only so much you can include.
Johnson: I'm curious since you two are political scientists, what ideas do you have for citizens to help keep their elected officials honest - any resources or websites could they utilize to help them with that? And also, are there other ways for citizens to help reform our constitutional democray republic other than voting?
Kettler: I think that there's a variety of things that's important for citizens to do. One of which is to pay attention to your state and local politics. There's so much attention to our federal politics, our national politics, which are important, not to suggest they aren't. But a lot happens at the state and local level, and it includes a lot of public resources and money. And so it's important for us to actually stay engaged and observe and keep an eye on what happens at the subnational level. And that's where local media plays such an important role. So actually engaging and reading those local media sources. Of course, this is a challenge as there's declining local media sources in a variety of areas in our country, which is concerning because local media plays a key role in uncovering a variety of the scandals we talk about in the podcast. So supporting local media, reading about our subnational governments are two things or a couple of things I think are really important for us to do as citizens.
Hunt: And I think specifically, you know, even within that is sort of investigative reporting with a lot of this, a lot of the stories we covered even beyond Blagojevich in this first season. You know, there were a lot of villains to be had in these episodes, a lot of people behaving badly. But we had our fair share of heroes, too. And a lot of them were journalists who, you know, dug a little deeper, who saw something that caught their eye and decided to, you know, do something about it. And I think that's something that's really important to take it to the next level and, you know, dig into public resources to do kind of the old fashioned kind of muckraking kind of journalism that, you know, especially in state politics, you're bound to turn up something and in a lot of cases ended up uncovering even bigger sort of swaths of corruption than you would otherwise have thought was going on. And so for sure, it's supporting local and investigative media. And yeah, it's getting involved, I think, especially in party primaries for a lot of legislative seats, both at the state level and the federal level. These districts are so far to the left or so far to the right that a lot of cases the general election is, you know, for all intents and purposes, a foregone conclusion. Getting involved in the primaries, getting to know the candidates, getting to know which ones have records of achievement, you know, clean records of service, who are dedicated to the public interest. This is something that I think is not done enough in primaries. And turnout participation is particularly low in those contests, but they end up deciding who is going to represent us. And so I think that's really important as well.
Johnson: Where can people find your podcast and also are there any upcoming or previous episodes you recommend listeners check out after listening to Blagojevich's episode?
Kettler: Oh, excellent question. So, you can find Scandalized at scandalizedpod.com. On our website, we have links to all of our episodes. You can also find the episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, any of the kind of podcast services. Our first season is fully available. We have eight episodes. We did this in collaboration with Boise State Public Radio, so you can also find our podcast through them as well. Charlie, any particular episodes that you'd like to recommend?
Hunt: I'm going to recommend one that, the Blagojevich one was one that I mainly hosted, but I really like one that Jaci mainly hosted, which was on former Representative Duncan Hunter of California, who used his campaign funds in basically all the wrong ways to cover up affairs, to buy food he wasn't supposed to buy, for vacations and travel. All of this stuff is against federal law. In that episode, Jaci tells a pretty fascinating and just absolutely bonkers story about how one person can make so many wrong decisions. That's one, too, where investigative reporting and journalism played a really key role in uncovering it. So, that's a personal favorite of mine.
Kettler: I would also recommend, Charlie hosted two episodes about politicians lying to conclude the season. I know there's been some discussion recently, right, about politicians lying, the effects that has, what happens. I think they connect to why people are losing trust in our government, the lies, some of these concerns, in addition to the misuse of public funds. So I think those two episodes also really dive into the different types of lies that politicians tell, why they're problematic and sort of the results of those.
Johnson: Is there anything I may not have asked you that you think is important for listeners to know about your work on the podcast or, in general, political corruption in 2025?
Hunt: I mean, I guess just that, and it's a point we make in a later episode, but just that, you know, we did this whole podcast about these scandalous activities and politicians behaving badly. One thing we tried to highlight is that there are differences between scandals. There are scandals that some of which are really bad and people should expect better from our government and from our politicians. But a lot of this other stuff is really run of the mill, human mistakes, politicians are humans just like us. And so one of our main points was just trying not to lump all politicians and all scandals into the same bucket, but to try to be discerning and try to sort of exercise our own judgment about what really deserves all the media hype and attention and what are maybe some things that are not as bad that we don't have to overreact to. And so that's one thing I think we try to keep in mind.
Johnson: Thank you, Charlie and Jaci, for taking time of your day in speaking with us.
Hunt: Thanks so much for having us.
Kettler: Yeah, thank you so much, we appreciate it.
Johnson: You can listen to their podcast Scandalized at npr.org or wherever you listen to podcasts. The series currently has eight episodes.
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