Convicted former Democratic U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is ramping up an effort to get politicians to encourage President Joe Biden to pardon the former congressman before the Democratic president leaves office early next year.
Jackson, who served about 17 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2013 to conspiring to defraud his campaign fund of roughly $750,000, has enlisted the help of south suburban mayors from his former congressional district and also put out a general call on his Facebook page for others to write letters of support to Biden.
“If you would like to write a letter on my behalf on your (stationery), a church resolution, on official (stationery), please send to me in messenger because I have to upload it to the pardon office and to my file,” Jackson wrote in a Facebook post Sept. 6.
That was the same day NBC News reported nine south suburban mayors had sent a letter to the White House requesting Jackson be pardoned. Jackson shared the NBC story and a copy of the letter in one of his posts that day on Facebook. But neither Jackson, who served in Congress from 1995 until he resigned amid burgeoning controversies in 2012, nor the NBC story mentioned the letter was drafted with Jackson’s involvement and at his request.
Jackson’s pardon effort comes less than a month after the former congressman’s father, civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson, was honored on the United Center stage during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on the same night Biden spoke.
In an email to the Tribune on Thursday, Jackson downplayed his role in encouraging the pardon push and referred questions to one of the nine south suburban mayors who signed the letter, Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld, who, Jackson said, “has been leading the effort for my full pardon in the south suburbs.”
“At this point, I believe it is most appropriate that he speak to the effort that he has initiated in the Southland,” Jackson wrote.
But Hofeld told the Tribune and the Daily Southtown on Tuesday that Jackson called him in mid-August to see if he and other mayors would write a letter supporting a pardon.
Hofeld, who’s been mayor in Homewood since 1997, said he was happy to help Jackson and that the two had a warm working relationship while they were both elected officials. Hofeld said he composed the letter, shared it with other mayors and emailed it to Jackson.
Homewood and other communities Jackson represented while he was in Congress benefited during his time in office, regardless of “his improprieties,” Hofeld said, adding federal funds for a rail park and rail viewing platform in Homewood were secured with Jackson’s help.
“In talking with other mayors they felt the same, he helped us all,” said Hofeld, who said he met with Jackson at Village Hall Sept. 6, the same day the letter was sent to the White House.
In their letter, the mayors — three of whom didn’t hold the office while Jackson was in Congress and one of whom overlapped with his tenure for only a year — wrote that they “could always count on him to recognize and support our communities’ needs.”
“We do not want to diminish his misuse of campaign funds and his subsequent conviction; however, he has more to give to society. He knows this, and we who have worked with him, believe it,” wrote the mayors, including Vernard Alsberry of Hazel Crest, Terry Matthews of South Chicago Heights, Don DeGraff of South Holland, James Ford of Country Club Hills, David Gonzalez of Chicago Heights, Richard Reinbold of Richton Park, Thomas Brown of East Hazel Crest and Terry Wells of Phoenix.
“Like you,” the mayors wrote to Biden, “we also make decisions that affect people in their everyday life. Oftentimes we must reflect upon ‘never judge a man based on his worst day.’ We believe that Congressman Jackson has better days ahead.”
Alsberry, who was first elected mayor a year after Jackson resigned from Congress, credited the former lawmaker with being a major booster for a still-unbuilt airport in the far south suburbs. Alsberry called Jackson, “the one who carried the water.”
Jackson, 59, “got in trouble, he did his time and it is time to get on with the rest of his life,” Alsberry said. “He’s still a young man.”
Also noting Jackson’s support for the long-discussed south suburban airport, Richton Park’s Reinbold said Jackson “was an advocate, not just for Richton Park but the entire district.”
Neither the White House nor the Department of Justice, which handles pardon requests, responded to a request for comment on Jackson’s case. Department of Justice records show Jackson made his initial request in 2022.
Hofeld said Jackson showed him other letters of support that have been submitted on his behalf, including from people Jackson served with in Congress.
Jackson’s successor, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson, encouraged the Biden administration to pardon Jackson, Kelly spokeswoman Jessica Lee said this week. Lee declined to provide a copy of any letter Kelly sent on Jackson’s behalf and said the congressman had no comment on why she feels he deserves a pardon.
Two years ago, then-U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush of Chicago, a civil rights activist and Black Panthers leader in the 1960s, sent the Biden administration a letter requesting a pardon for Jackson. Rush’s successor, Jackson’s younger brother, U.S. Rep Jonathan Jackson of Chicago, had no immediate comment through a spokesperson on whether the first-term congressman had requested a pardon for his older brother.
In the Thursday email to the Tribune, Jesse Jackson Jr. said he’s also received letters of support from U.S. Rep. Danny Davis of Chicago, civil rights attorney Ben Crump and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who appeared on the DNC stage with Jackson Sr. and two of his other sons.
Jesse Jackson Sr. and his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition also have sent a letter to Biden requesting Jackson Jr. be pardoned and Jackson Sr. has hand-delivered letters to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Jackson Jr. said in the email.
Pardoning Jesse Jackson Jr., whose father Biden ran against in a crowded Democratic presidential primary field in 1988, could be fraught for the president. That’s particularly the case as he has publicly said he will not pardon his own son, Hunter, who’s been convicted on federal gun charges and recently pleaded guilty in a separate federal tax case.
Jackson pleaded guilty in 2013 to conspiring to defraud his reelection campaign of about $750,000 that was used to pay for personal expenses such as home renovations two mounted elk heads and high-end merchandise, including mink clothes and a Michael Jackson autographed guitar. He was sentenced to 30 months and spent a portion of that time in a halfway house and on home confinement.
He was released from federal custody in September 2015.
His wife at the time, former Chicago Ald. Sandi Jackson, pleaded guilty in a separate case to filing false tax returns to help conceal the scheme and was sentenced to a year in prison. She served about 11 months before being released in September 2016.
Jackson never formally requested an individual pardon from President Barack Obama, though he did argue in a Facebook post in late 2016, about a month before the end of Obama’s second term, that the president should issue a blanket pardon to former federal prisoners. Such an action, which wasn’t taken, would have covered both Jackson and his former wife.
Jackson said he remains committed to this idea.
“Sometimes being at the back of the line is the best position for advocacy to get the line moving,” he said. “My father’s position is that I am in the best position to help others breathe again when I’ve put my oxygen mask on first.”
In 2019, Jackson joined his father in asking for a pardon from Republican President Donald Trump, not for himself but for disgraced former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison for various crimes, including an attempt to sell Obama’s former seat in the U.S. Senate. The younger Jackson was among those Blagojevich had considered appointing to the seat.
Trump ultimately commuted Blagojevich’s sentence in 2020, releasing him from prison about six years early.
Jackson said his father also “advocated for my pardon in the waning hours of the Trump administration.”