To Michael Madigan, the once-mighty Democratic House speaker, the issue in his federal racketeering trial next year is not just about guilt or innocence. It is a fight over how he will be remembered.
, one of Illinois’ highest-profile political corruption cases in years, previewed many elements of the former speaker’s own case, one littered with an array of bribery and extortion allegations that portray his entire political operation as a criminal enterprise.
It’s clear from the jurors who spoke after Tuesday’s clean-sweep guilty verdicts that the argument that Madigan and his associates have been pitching to the public — that this was all politics as usual — fell completely flat in a federal courtroom. In addition to being a preview of Madigan’s trial, the ComEd Four case struck at the heart of Illinois politics itself, holding up a mirror to the entire system of relationships between lobbyists, legislators and government-regulated utilities that rely on the General Assembly for their profits.
Convicted in the ComEd Four trial were former ComEd contract lobbyist Michael McClain, Madigan’s longtime confidant; former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore; former ComEd executive John Hooker, the utility’s top lobbyist for years; and ComEd contract lobbyist Jay Doherty, the ex-president of the City Club, a civic forum for Chicago’s elite.
The conviction is also certain to be tested on appeal, given the deep division among several federal judicial circuits over where the line is between legal lobbying and gratuities and bribery. McClain’s attorneys have maintained he is mixed up in the case only because federal prosecutors wanted to squeeze him to flip on Madigan, a prospect no one who ever dealt with him in Springfield would expect.
“Currying favor with government officials — even those with the capacity to influence legislation of interest to the employers — is legal,” motion stated, adding that the “far-flung” indictment “impermissibly treats lawful ingratiation as illegal bribery, and stitches together unrelated allegations of purported misconduct into a single scheme.”
Before that meeting, Solis allegedly recorded video of Madigan telling him the speaker’s communication with Pritzker did not need to be in writing,” according to the indictment. “I can just verbally tell him,” Madigan allegedly said. Under the terms of the agreement, the charge will be dropped on April 8, 2025, allowing him to keep his $100,000 annual city pension as long as he continues to cooperate with the ongoing investigations.
During his last few years in Springfield, the speaker’s standing among House Democrats was weakened by sexual harassment scandals among misbehaving aides in 2018. But Madigan gained seats in that fall’s election as Pritzker led the Democratic ticket and defeated Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
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