WASHINGTON —  President Trump pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Monday evening — and publicly suggested he would nominate the disgraced Democrat to be US ambassador to Serbia.

“It’s my honor to do it. I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office before signing the full and unconditional pardon.

“He wasn’t quite as successful, but he had somebody that saw what was going on. I didn’t know him other than, I believe he was on ‘The Apprentice.'”

Asked whether he’s considering appointing Blagojevich as America’s envoy to Belgrade, Trump said: “No, but I would.”

Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence on federal corruption charges in February 2020, but did not issue a full pardon at the time.

Blagojevich, 68, was convicted of 18 counts of corruption in 2011 involving handing out political favors in exchange for financial benefits, including trying to solicit campaign money in return for an appointment to Barack Obama’s Senate seat following his 2008 election to the presidency.

“I’ve got this thing and it’s f—— golden,” Blagojevich was recorded saying of Obama’s about-to-be-vacated Senate seat. “I’m just not giving it up for … nothing.”

At trial, the then-governor insisted he merely meant it was a “unique opportunity” to appoint someone, but another recording captured Blagojevich implying he was offered $500,000 — while prosecutors said he wanted as much as $1.5 million.

Blagojevich also was convicted of forcing a children’s hospital CEO to pay $25,000 in exchange for approving pending pediatric reimbursement policies, attempting to score $100,000 in kickbacks to sign a bill that would have helped the horseracing industry and lying to the FBI.

The former governor told podcaster Joe Rogan last month that he was set up by the “corrupt and dishonest” FBI and argued that then-Chicago US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wanted to boast of busting two governors in a row.

“They feel like they’re a power center in their own right,” he told Rogan of federal law enforcement.

The blunt-talking governor, who appeared on the Trump-hosted NBC reality show “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2010, told Rogan that the president also was persecuted, pointing to Trump’s conviction in Manhattan last year on 34 felonies of falsifying business records to conceal 2016 hush money payments.

“What happened to Trump is so important. They did it in those different courts where they got convictions for things that weren’t crimes,” Blagojevich explained.

Trump commuted Blagojevich’s sentence during his first term as the 45th president sought re-election, saying the punishment was “ridiculous” and didn’t fit the ex-governor’s crimes.

The initial clemency grant followed lobbying from the former governor’s wife Patti after Trump repeatedly expressed frustration with the FBI over the long-running and leaky probe of his 2016 campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia, which turned up no evidence of a conspiracy.