President Trump Donald John TrumpFederal prosecutor speaks out, says Barr 'has brought shame' on Justice Dept. Former Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick MORE asked donors in Chicago how many of them supported him granting clemency to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), who was sentenced to 14 years in prison on corruption charges in 2012, according to The Wall Street Journal.

At the Monday fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel in Chicago, Trump asked hundreds of donors for a show of hands in favor of clemency, with a majority raising their hands, according to the newspaper, citing six people who were present.

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“He made the statement, and I looked at him and went, ‘No,’” Rep. Mike Bost Michael (Mike) J. BostMORE (R-Ill.) said Wednesday, according to the newspaper. “And then he asked the crowd, ‘Well, who thinks we should?’”

Blagojevich was arrested in December 2008 and impeached and removed from office the next month amid charges he attempted to sell the Senate seat vacated by then-Sen. Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaDemocrats ramp up pressure on Lieberman to drop out of Georgia Senate race The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden on Trump: 'He'll leave' l GOP laywers brush off Trump's election remarks l Obama's endorsements Trump pledges to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, designate KKK a terrorist group in pitch to Black voters MORE (D) when he was elected president.

Bost, who voted for Blagojevich’s impeachment as a state lawmaker in 2009, joined the four other Republicans in the Illinois congressional delegation in signing a letter recommending against clemency.

Bost said Trump responded that he thought that “we, as Republicans, sometimes are perceived as being cold on these issues,” Bost said.

Trump “was definitely trying to take the temperature of the room and gauge, especially in a room full of high-dollar donors, how are these people going to feel,” said conservative video host and Next News Network producer Gary Franchi, who was present in the room. “We’re talking about the high-dollar people there, so he doesn’t want to piss those people off.”

Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of clemency or a commutation for Blagojevich, who was a contestant on “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010.

In August, he told reporters "His wife, I think, is fantastic, and I'm thinking about commuting his sentence very strongly. I think it's enough, seven years.”

Blagojevich’s wife Patti Blagojevich has made multiple appearances on Fox News in which she directly appealed to the president to commute the sentence, comparing her husband’s fall from grace to special counsel Robert Mueller Robert (Bob) MuellerCNN's Toobin warns McCabe is in 'perilous condition' with emboldened Trump CNN anchor rips Trump over Stone while evoking Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting The Hill's 12:30 Report: New Hampshire fallout MORE’s investigation, which Trump repeatedly denounced as a “witch hunt.”