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* Mark Brown, Jon Seidel and Tina Sfondeles…
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was recorded on a wiretapped phone call in 2018 discussing with lobbyist confidant Michael McClain a plan to arrange secret payments to a close political ally who had been implicated in a sexual harassment scandal, newly released court documents show.
Madigan has always denied any involvement in the scheme in which McClain allegedly arranged with a group of other lobbyists allied with the speaker to make monthly payments to Kevin Quinn, brother of Ald. Marty Quinn and a key member of Madigan’s political organization who had been ousted over his inappropriate treatment of a female co-worker, Alaina Hampton.
But in the call from Madigan to McClain on Aug. 29, 2018, McClain is quoted as telling Madigan he had put “four or five people together” who were willing to make monthly payments to Quinn for a six-month period to tide him over until he could find a job.
The call was referenced in an affidavit sworn out by an FBI agent May 13, 2019, as the feds sought permission from a judge to search McClain’s home in Quincy. A redacted version of the document was unsealed Friday in federal court in Springfield.
The full affidavit is here. Tell us what you find.
* Buried deep in the story…
[Fidel Marquez, a former ComEd executive who pleaded guilty separately to a bribery conspiracy in September 2020] later told the feds he “was not aware of any action by Madigan to defeat or advance a bill ComEd either opposed or supported, respectively. Marquez knew of no ‘obvious’ influence by Madigan to defeat a bill.”
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, May 23, 22 @ 9:51 am
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The least surprising news of all time, but still infuriating.
When the final chapter on MJM is written, I hope this whole ordeal gets more attention than it got in real time.
Comment by SWSider Monday, May 23, 22 @ 9:55 am
I’m trying to remember if I heard Madigan himself deny this Quinn stuff or if I only heard his team say he wasn’t involved. Either way, not a great look.
Comment by 47th Ward Monday, May 23, 22 @ 10:12 am
Shocking it’s almost as if he ran his office in the same building as Quinn’s brother.
Comment by Michaelfromil Monday, May 23, 22 @ 10:41 am
Where are. RICO civil charges from the Illinois AG. Don’t think we should hold our breath
Comment by Sue Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:02 am
Sue - you want the AG to step on the Feds case?
Comment by SaulGoodman Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:12 am
The only thing that really jumped out at me From the Sun Times story was that McClain was not only caught on wiretaps with the lobbyists arranging the payments, but advising them on how to create a paper trail to allow them to deduct the payment to as a business expense.
Tax charges are like the bread and butter of federal corruption investigations. Knowing this happened, and not seeing any tax charges filed against the lobbyists at this point seems very interesting to me.
Comment by SpiDem Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:20 am
I see Lisa Madigan name comes up 6 times. It appears the sins of Mike Madigan can’t be blamed on Lisa.
Comment by Steve Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:21 am
Sue,
The Illinois AG doesn’t even have that authority unless they are specifically asked to intervene by a county state’s attorney
Comment by SpiDem Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:22 am
Reminds me of the debt Illinois citizens owe Alaina Hampton for standing up for all of against sexual harassment.
Government and politics in our state would be a lot better off if we had more people like Ms. Hampton and fewer people like the Two Mikes.
Comment by Back to the Future Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:33 am
Sue,
—-The Illinois AG doesn’t even have that authority unless they are specifically asked to intervene by a county state’s attorney—– The Lisa Madigan talking point for years, but completely not accurate. The Madigan obsession is just like the Trump cult. Mind boggling.
Comment by chicago guy Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:50 am
=RICO civil charges from the Illinois AG.=
The Illinois AG can issue federal criminal charges? Please.
And, MJM is more likely to get convicted in Federal Court.
Comment by JS Mill Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:53 am
Got all of you critics- I said CIVIL RICO. And Raoul could file and wait on the fed’s criminal case. The state was harmed by Madigan and the AG has civil jurisdiction
Comment by Sue Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:54 am
Rich, any chance you might provide a link to the 136-page filing?
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Monday, May 23, 22 @ 11:56 am
Always neat to find out who someone really is when they seek to oppress women who have been victimized and reward those who behaved inappropriately or illegal in the first place.
Mike Madigan’s legacy is going to be that everyone is aware of what garbage he was, what garbage he surrounded himself in, and what garbage he mongered leaving all of us to wonder why our elected officials tolerated this trash dump of a human being serving as Speaker of the House for so long.
There are some people in the legislature who owe it to the People of Illinois to quietly resign so that we can be represented by legislators that a more precise moral compass.
Comment by Candy Dogood Monday, May 23, 22 @ 12:13 pm
Are Kevin and Marty Quinn at least somewhat related to Pat Quinn?
Comment by Just Wondering Monday, May 23, 22 @ 12:23 pm
==The Madigan obsession is just like the Trump cult. Mind boggling.==
I certainly seem some parallels: For example, making excuses for gender and sex harassment is something both MGM and DJT in the interest of protecting their white male inner circle.
Oh? That’s not what you meant? Hm.
Comment by SWSider Monday, May 23, 22 @ 12:23 pm
It saddens me that a federal government would put in a court filing that he knows what’s in Mike Madigan’s head.
“I think I ought to stay out of it” means just that to me. Anything added by the agent is pure speculation and conjecture.
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Monday, May 23, 22 @ 12:34 pm
=Are Kevin and Marty Quinn at least somewhat related to Pat Quinn?=
No.
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Monday, May 23, 22 @ 12:35 pm
–not seeing any tax charges filed against the lobbyists–
That’s assuming that they claimed business tax deductions on the payments.
Comment by King Louis XVI Monday, May 23, 22 @ 12:48 pm
MJM spox quote: “If a group of people were attempting to help Kevin Quinn, the speaker was not a part of it.”
Likely legal hair splitting, but “not part of it” is, arguably, different than not knowing about it.
Comment by King Louis XVI Monday, May 23, 22 @ 1:04 pm
wait…mike madigan lies? mind blown.
Comment by former cubs fan Monday, May 23, 22 @ 1:08 pm
Makes you wonder what else they have on tape that we have not yet heard.
Comment by Lincoln Lad Monday, May 23, 22 @ 1:15 pm
The Board member discussion - oh clearly Madigan knew and wanted it.
Page 42, footnote. Madigan recommending that McClain get work for [redacted] lobbyist on gaming issues. That is a whole other area to explore.
Page 48. McClain calls female attorney “dumb $hits” for not realizing that she should be hiring someone presumably from Victor Reyes law firm.
Page 53-54, Marquez and Hooker discussing how to explain to new ComEd CEO Dominguez how Doherty’s contract works, and noting it was under “the CEO’s budget”.
Page 61: I said to Fidel, ‘You may not be able to say this, you may be able to say that.’
Just like you ended up telling Fidel he had to hire [a named individual] because [a
named labor leader] came to you. ‘We had to hire these guys because Mike Madigan
came to us.’ It’s just that simple.”
64, 66: “” Marquez said, “So, as far as I know,
and maybe you can tell me different, all these guys do is, they’re a sub under you and
you cut them a check. Do they do anything? What do they do? What do you have them
doing?” Doherty said, “Well, not much, to answer the question.” “They keep their mouth shut, and you know. But, do they do anything for me on a
day to day basis? No.’
67-68: “why
would we pay a guy, like Doherty and these other three people, all this money? I don’t
know about the other three peop]e. That’s, that, I guess, can be answered in Springfield with Madigan. And to keep Madigan happy, I think it’s worth it, because
you’d hear otherwise.”
72-73: Wonder which Latino legislator wanted a PR company hired.
Pages 74-75: interesting whether Madigan was demanding resumes get hired during FEJA negotiations or if that was just an example.
Paragraph 81: Ugh.
Page 98: there are other entities making payouts besides Doherty’s. [Maybe one is a missed redaction on page 109 John Bradley?] McClain stated, “But, you can’t just ask a company to be donating $60,000 a year when the guy can’t even really talk very
well anymore. Or enunciate very well, any more.”
p. 102: Based upon the preceding calls and
the other evidence in this case, I believe that Madigan and McClain have used all
three of the Intermediaries (JDDA, [redacted] [redacted] for ComEd’s payments to [redacted].
112: Speaker will help “after he’s sworn in and gets his rules”.
Comment by Mary Monday, May 23, 22 @ 1:19 pm
Reading through this, you know LCN isn’t actual cryptography guys right? I cracked your code.
Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Monday, May 23, 22 @ 1:34 pm
=Speaker will help “after he’s sworn in and gets his rules”.=
I am confused how often McClain uses this excuse. When was Mike Madigan not going to get what he wanted from the Rules he and his team wrote?
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Monday, May 23, 22 @ 3:13 pm
You’re missing the message, Colin. He meant they’d return to the topic after he had those two roll calls sewn up.
Comment by BWA Monday, May 23, 22 @ 3:24 pm
For anyone still doubting Madigan’s guilt - these conversations in and of themselves are proof beyond a reasonable doubt of honest services fraud. Upon conviction- Madigan will be likely sentenced to at least 3 years. Think Sheldon Silvers
Comment by Sue Monday, May 23, 22 @ 3:34 pm
===honest services fraud===
https://www.wiley.law/newsletter-3417
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, May 23, 22 @ 3:40 pm
@Sue - the US Attorneys office went to great pains to charge this with 666 bribery, not honest services, there was a heavily briefed motion to dismiss on it and now jury instructions on what constitutes a bribe. Crains wrote about it and Rich covered it last week. In other words, try to keep up.
Comment by BWA Monday, May 23, 22 @ 3:41 pm
@BWA =You’re missing the message, Colin. He meant they’d return to the topic after he had those two roll calls sewn up.=
When did Mike Madigan ever not have things sewn up when it came to the Rules and his re-election to Speaker (except 2021, of course). It reads as if passing the rules was ever in jeopardy when I posit that was never the case.
Comment by Colin O'Scopy Monday, May 23, 22 @ 3:59 pm
The sign of the times…where age did not keep with the technological advances. Both MJM and McClain got sloppy after playing these alleged schemes after so many years.
Again the Federales have up to 3 years + of recordings.
No bueno for MJM; eventually he was going to slip up at one point.
Comment by Pizza Man Monday, May 23, 22 @ 4:19 pm
“When did Mike Madigan ever not have things sewn up when it came to the Rules and his re-election to Speaker (except 2021, of course)”
In 2019, post the Alaina Hampton fallout.
Comment by BWA Monday, May 23, 22 @ 4:31 pm
==But, you can’t just ask a company to be donating $60,000 a year when the guy can’t even really talk very
well anymore. Or enunciate very well, any more.”==
Who is he referring to?
Comment by low level Monday, May 23, 22 @ 4:39 pm
== - Sue - Monday, May 23, 22 @ 3:34 pm:
For anyone still doubting Madigan’s guilt - these conversations in and of themselves are proof beyond a reasonable doubt of honest services fraud. Upon conviction- Madigan will be likely sentenced to at least 3 years. Think Sheldon Silvers ==
Sue, Sheldon Silver was given a 14 year sentence that was reduced to 6.5 year sentence and he was caught taking $4M dollars. The feds have not charged nor ever said Madigan took anything of value for himself. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Comment by exhausted Monday, May 23, 22 @ 4:43 pm
Colin, there were only two votes that really mattered. (Or still do for that matter)
The first was (is) the vote for Speaker and the second was (is) the vote for the rules. Everything flows from these two things. You know this. Although confident of success, they could never be certain until after the votes were cast.
My understanding is MJM phoned each one of his members to ask for their votes for Speaker no matter how much of a foregone conclusion this was every two years.
Comment by low level Monday, May 23, 22 @ 4:50 pm
—ComEd legislation that came up when Daniels was Speaker that he wanted no part of (sorry I dont have the paragraph number) that MJM held meetings in his office - does anyone know what this was and whether or not it was successful?
—1970’s, ComEd meter readers, 13th Ward hires : during the days of patronage, this was a common practice, not just in the 13th ward either. Several committeemen interviewed in We Dont Want Nobody Nobody Sent remarked that they placed just as many of their guys into private sector jobs as government ones. I remember being amazed when I read that.
Comment by low level Monday, May 23, 22 @ 5:08 pm
==But, you can’t just ask a company to be donating $60,000 a year when the guy can’t even really talk very
well anymore. Or enunciate very well, any more.”==
=== Who is he referring to? ===
Somebody who had a stroke?
Comment by Bud's Bar Stoool Monday, May 23, 22 @ 8:33 pm
== Somebody who had a stroke?==.
Ah, yeah, thank you
Comment by low level Monday, May 23, 22 @ 9:05 pm