Watchdog wants FBI’s notes from Obama interview in Blagojevich probe

A conservative watchdog group that made headlines hounding Hillary Clinton over her private email setup is renewing a fight over a former Illinois governor’s efforts to receive favors in return for President Obama’s empty Senate seat.

In 2011, Rod Blagojevich (D) was convicted on more than a dozen corruption charges for trying to sell the president’s former seat in the Senate for campaign contributions and other perks.

{mosads}As part of the federal investigation into the former governor, the FBI interviewed several high-profile figures, including Obama and his aides Valerie Jarrett and Rahm Emanuel, who is now mayor of Chicago.

On Monday, the watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a new lawsuit to make the FBI’s notes about those interviews public.

“The public should not be forced to wait any longer” to see the interview summaries, the group said in its filing.

Judicial Watch had previously filed a lawsuit to obtain the material, but the suit was tossed out as Blagojevich was in the midst of a resentencing process, following action by an appeals court. The former governor is currently serving a 14-year sentence in a federal prison.

Judicial Watch had filed several open records lawsuits relating to Clinton’s private email server during the presidential campaign. Those courtroom dramas helped to drag out the public controversy of the issue, which remained a stinging vulnerability for the Democratic presidential nominee.