An legal professional for former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s longtime confidante instructed a federal jury Tuesday that the bribery and corruption prices towards the pair try to criminalize the authorized lobbying and relationship-building on the coronary heart of US politics. state.
“The proof will present that Mike McClain was a lobbyist and, like all lobbyists, (he) understood that if you wish to have entry to a politician you need to develop a relationship of belief,” protection legal professional John Mitchell instructed the jury in his assertion opening.
Mitchell in contrast lobbying to gross sales, saying it is all concerning the “hope” of getting a gathering, of getting that relationship. Corruption, he stated, is an alternate, an envelope of money in alternate for a vote.
“A great lobbyist builds good, constructive relationships with elected officers,” Mitchell stated. “If you do not have entry to a politician, you don’t have any hope of convincing him.”
He stated McClain did “100% completely authorized favors to Mike Madigan” for the aim of “constructing belief and sustaining and growing entry to Mike Madigan.”
The authorities’s view of the proof “is just mistaken,” Mitchell instructed jurors.
“They have been so centered on Mike Madigan that they observed,” he stated. “He didn’t act in an try to bribe Mike Madigan or assist him receive bribes… He is 100% harmless.”
“There’s an previous saying: If you stroll round all day carrying a hammer, ultimately you will discover one thing that appears like a nail,” Mitchell stated. “The authorities has wrongly concluded that Mike Madigan is {powerful} and due to this fact have to be corrupt.”
Madigan, 82, who was speaker of the Illinois House for many years and head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering prices that allege he ran his state and political operations as a legal enterprise, conspiring with utility giants ComEd and AT&T to place his pals on contracts that require little or no work and utilizing his public place to drum up enterprise for his non-public legislation agency.
Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd lobbyist, have pleaded not responsible and denied any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors, not surprisingly, painted a really completely different image, telling the jury of their opening assertion Monday that Madigan has ruthlessly used his place on the prime of state politics to betray the general public belief, improve his energy, enrich his pals and align himself. pockets.
“Madigan abused his energy and used the group he led to interact in a sample of corrupt conduct over and time and again,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker instructed jurors.
Alongside Madigan, Streicker stated, was McClain, his longtime pal and political ally, who “protected Madigan, masking Madigan’s involvement in corrupt actions.”
“Together the defendants launched into a marketing campaign of corruption,” he stated. “A marketing campaign of corruption by which they took the chance to leverage Madigan’s immense energy within the Illinois authorities to hunt and settle for bribes from individuals who wanted one thing from the federal government. … This racket has been occurring for years.”
The prosecution’s first witness was former state Rep. Carol Sente, a Vernon Hills Democrat who gave jurors a fundamental overview of Illinois legislative process and Madigan’s energy over the destiny of laws.
Sente was additionally among the many first witnesses subpoenaed within the “ComEd Four” case final 12 months.
Madigan personally met with Sente earlier than she took workplace so she might decide whether or not she could be proper for the job, he stated. Every time he ran for re-election as president, he known as her personally to ask for her help and his all-important guidelines that management the House.
Although she initially assured the Sente that she might all the time vote in one of the best ways for her district, she quickly discovered, as soon as she took workplace, that the speaker had particular concepts about how representatives ought to achieve this, handing out “verify playing cards” with voting suggestions, particularly for legislators. in essentially the most aggressive “goal” districts like yours.
She stated Madigan’s points director, Will Cousineau, instructed her “you need to observe the management chart precisely.” And he defined that if he did not wish to observe the guidelines, the dialog could be “fairly hostile.” He stated he ended up speaking to Madigan one-on-one about 5 to seven occasions about his grades.
She went into element about how Madigan might kill payments within the {powerful} House Rules Committee, the place loyal lawmakers adopted the speaker’s orders to advance the payments for full hearings or bury them.
Two of Sente’s mortgage-related payments remained caught within the Rules Committee regardless of his repeated efforts to push him to convey the payments to a vote. He defined that he spoke with Madigan thrice in 2011, however the conversations “escalated in nature.” She stated she ultimately approached Madigan on the House flooring, and he instructed her bluntly, “‘I do not wish to discuss that invoice once more,’ and stated, ‘It will not transfer ahead.'”
But when he sponsored laws to impose time period limits that included 14 years on legislative leaders just like the speaker, Madigan requested a gathering, he stated.
He proposed laws that was not retroactive — which means Madigan might have served one other 14 years as speaker — and that Madigan’s earlier many years as president wouldn’t forestall him from serving longer as House chief.
Sente stated their non-public assembly in his suite on the Capitol lasted about 5 minutes.
“He had a sheet of paper that was a invoice abstract of that invoice,” he testified. “He turned it to me and requested if I might clarify why I used to be submitting it.”
When Sente defined that she was a “robust believer” in turnover in management, Madigan responded that “it takes a very long time” to prepare, Sente stated.
“I stated, ’35 years?’” Sente testified. “Shortly afterward the assembly ended.”
During cross-examination, Madigan’s legal professional Daniel Collins tried to indicate the speaker as hard-working and well mannered, not controlling or omnipotent.
Sente admitted that not all the payments Madigan opposed would die in committee, together with Sente’s “smoke-free campuses” laws that Madigan voted towards however which was signed into legislation anyway. She additionally observed that she very hardly ever noticed him visibly upset.
“He does not scream,” Sente stated, and appeared to smile in Madigan’s route. Madigan smiled in return.
Sente additionally cross-acknowledged that he launched the time period restrict invoice on the suggestion of a Madigan staffer and that it burnished his picture as an unbiased voice.
Collins additionally rejected her testimony about her predatory lending accounts that she stated have been blocked by Madigan. Indeed, Madigan had supported a 2003 legislation that banned a lot of misleading practices, together with making loans to individuals who could not afford to repay them, he acknowledged.
At the center of the prosecution’s proof are tons of of wiretapped recordings of McClain’s telephone and undercover movies made by secret collaborators, akin to former ComEd government Fidel Marquez and then-Ald. Daniele Solis.
Mitchell instructed the jury that regardless of all the key recordings, there isn’t a proof that ComEd ever agreed to provide something to Madigan in alternate for his assist passing any laws, which might cross the road from authorized favors to corruption.
“You would suppose that if there was an alternate there could be one thing there, one thing that means an alternate,” Mitchell stated.
He additionally took purpose at Solis and his unprecedented cope with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, telling the jury that in Solis, “you will see what an actual legal appears to be like like.”
Solis stole tons of of hundreds of {dollars} from marketing campaign funds, Mitchell stated. He obtained bribes together with money, Viagra and prostitutes. He lied to his spouse and household. And in alternate for his collaboration “he’ll get a free go”.
“Instead of federal jail, Solis now holidays on tropical islands,” Mitchell stated, studying the phrases from a slide he positioned on displays within the courtroom. He stated Solis cannot be trusted with something.
“Not one thing small, not one thing huge, and definitely not one thing as main as a federal corruption case,” he stated.
Madigan’s attorneys, in the meantime, described the Democratic stalwart as a soft-spoken, non-confrontational Southwest Side man attempting to advance his occasion’s blue-collar agenda.
Denouncing the federal government’s cooperating witnesses as liars with an “axe to grind” who have been working with out the speaker’s information or authorization, legal professional Tom Breen urged jurors to concentrate on what the intentions of Madigan, “not about what anybody else says” about about 200 intercepted audio and video experiences. video recordings that can dominate the 11-week trial.
What they may discover, Breen stated, is a person attempting to convey jobs and alternatives to his constituents by following within the footsteps of his father, a thirteenth Ward superintendent.
“What you will notice is that his intention, as his father taught him, was to guard the Democratic agenda. Hard work,” Breen stated. He stated that whereas others might have been plotting behind Madigan’s again, “He does not act that approach.”
“He by no means made any calls for on anybody,” Breen stated, at one level slapping the lectern for impact. “If anybody says they did it, that is bullshit. It’s simply nonsense.”
The jury of eight girls and 4 males is predicted to start listening to proof after Mitchell’s opening assertion.
The subsequent witness after Sente is predicted to be Scott Drury, one other former state consultant who will give the jury an outline of how the General Assembly works in Springfield and why Madigan wielded a lot energy and affect over laws.
Also on Tuesday’s witness record is former state Rep. Lou Lang, a then-Madigan ally who was compelled to resign in 2018 by Madigan, allegedly with McClain’s assist, after the rumor {that a} lady was threatening to go public along with her testimony. an accusation of sexual harassment.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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