* Rod Blagojevich’s brother Rob has a new book coming out…

The publisher gave The Associated Press an advance copy of the book, which is titled “Fundraiser A” and set for an April release. Robert, a Republican, agreed to work as chief fundraiser for his brother, a Democrat, in mid-2008 after accepting Rod’s assurances — naively, he writes — that he wasn’t under investigation. An initial complaint unsealed after the then-governor’s arrest on Dec. 9, 2008, referred to Robert only as “Fundraiser A.”

Before the brothers’ joint 2010 trial, lead prosecutor Reid Schar proposed that if Robert talked Rod into a guilty plea, charges against the elder brother could be reduced or dismissed, the book says. Regarding the odds of convictions, the book says Schar told Robert’s lawyer, “We’ve got the governor, but your guy can win this.”

“Why did they indict me in the first place if they thought I could win?” Robert asked his attorney, Michael Ettinger, in rejecting the proposal. “I was never going to ask Rod to plead guilty to save me from prosecution.” […]

Robert paints his sibling as sometimes delusional and persistently unapologetic about entangling his year-older brother in a legal nightmare. The title of one chapter, “La-La Land,” is Robert’s commentary on the world Rod inhabited.

This may be the first Blagojevich book that I’m looking forward to reading.

* Some excerpts…

— The book blasts then-U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald for telling reporters on the day of the then-governor’s arrest that the feds had stopped a “corruption crime spree” that would “make Lincoln roll over in his grave.” Writes Robert Blagojevich, “As far as I was concerned, any idea of the presumption of innocence I should have had was long lost before the trial began — starting with Fitzgerald’s comment.”

— Robert saw his brother at their 2009 arraignment and became annoyed that he made no effort to express regret about the legal morass his big brother found himself in. Regarding the meeting, Robert writes: “You expect that he’ll apologize for dragging you into this mess. … Instead, he leans over the table and says, ‘You don’t look like a criminal to me.’ You don’t smile or laugh. This day is not a joke. You look at him without emotion and say, ‘You look like you need a haircut.’”

— To illustrate the tension between them, Robert recounts how Rod once walked over during a court recess at their joint 2010 trial to say Robert was “coming off clean so far.” Robert snapped back angrily: “Of course I should come off clean. I am clean. … This has nothing to do with me.”

* And…

Rod Blagojevich’s brother, Robert, says in a new book his relationship with his sibling has been so strained that the ex-governor even refused to see him when he traveled to Colorado to visit him in prison. […]

Robert traveled from Tennessee to the prison where Rod’s serving a 14-year sentence in 2012. He writes their relationship remains “completely broken.”

Discuss.