The high-profile racketeering bribery trial of former Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and his co-defendant, Michael McClain, has been the most highly-anticipated trial in years.
Madigan is the longest-serving speaker of any legislative chamber in the country, having led the Illinois House of Representatives as its speaker from 1983-2021, except for a two-year window in the 1990s when Republicans controlled the chamber. For years, McClain was one of the best-known lobbyists under the Capitol dome, with a lengthy list of clients that included Commonwealth Edison, the power provider for Chicago residents that also has been at the center of the federal investigation into Madigan. McClain was also a longtime confidante of Madigan’s, having served together as legislators during the 1970s.
They are now on trial in federal court in Chicago, facing charges of racketeering conspiracy, bribery and other counts. Prosecutors are seeking to prove that ComEd bribed Madigan with no-work jobs and contracts for the ex-speaker’s allies in exchange for help ushering through their priorities in the legislature. Another prong of the case centers on allegations Madigan and McClain allegedly helped shake down developers — with business pending before the City Council and Illinois legislature — for lucrative tax work for Madigan’s law firm. The former speaker and McClain say they’ve done nothing wrong.
First, some catching up:
- If you want to know more about who Michael Madigan is, read this in-depth profile.
- For a look at the other players involved, read this summary from the Chicago Sun-Times’ Jon Seidel, a federal courts reporter who has been following the twists and turns of these allegations for many years. He is covering this trial with veteran WBEZ politics reporter Dave McKinney and the Sun-Times’ Matthew Hendrickson.
- To hear McKinney’s preview of the case against Madigan, listen here.
Here is a timeline of how the trial has unfolded so far:
Week 1: Oct. 8-17
The trial, originally estimated to be 10 weeks, started off pretty slowly. It took prosecutors and defense attorneys seven work days to choose the jurors, a panel of eight women, four men and six alternates. The federal judge in this case, U.S. District Judge John Blakey, let attorneys question the jurors and signaled early on that attorneys’ estimates for the length of the trial seemed off.
Week 2: Oct. 21-24
In opening statements Oct. 21, Asst. U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker accused Madigan and his co-defendant, Michael McClain, of “corruption at the highest levels of state government.” Streicker and powerhouse defense attorney Tom Breen laid out their respective cases for three hours, with McClain attorney John Mitchell following up the next day. Breen told jurors that Streicker was “relying on bad information” and “unreliable sources” and that the case was built around ”guesswork and speculation.”
Madigan is accused of five different schemes. In two of them, he is accused of seeking and accepting bribes from ComEd and AT&T Illinois while the utilities were seeking favorable action from Madigan. But Breen insisted to jurors that Madigan was “completely ignorant of what people are saying behind his back.” In doing so, he gently shifted blame toward McClain, Madigan’s longtime friend.
To begin to unspool the case against Madigan, the prosecution called several former legislators as witnesses this week, to try to lay out how Madigan’s influence made or broke legislation. Those witnesses included former state legislators Scott Drury and Lou Lang, the latter of whom testified that McClain told him he needed to step down amid sexual harassment allegations, and he assumed that was at Madigan’s behest.
The week included jurors hearing one seemingly banal conversation, played to show the tight connection between Madigan and McClain, in which the former speaker goes over a soup order with his wife, using McClain’s cellular phone. Madigan famously did not carry his own cell phone or use email, testimony revealed.
Week 3: Oct. 28-31
Part of the government’s case is how Madigan and McClain allegedly rewarded loyalists to the political operation — that included allegedly securing no-work jobs, but it also meant supporting them financially and behind the scenes when those loyalists were accused of misdeeds.
Jurors heard from a senior advisor to Madigan, Will Cousineau, who testified that Madigan and McClain would regularly meet alone in Cousineau’s office. Jurors also heard a secretly recorded phone conversation between Cousineau and McClain, in which McClain floated the idea of raising money for a Madigan ally who had lost his job over explosive sexual harassment allegations.
Week 4: Nov. 4-7
The government’s case relies on the testimony and secretly recorded tapes of a number of people who once worked in Madigan’s inner circle. But federal agents didn’t only tap phones. They also had Fidel Marquez, ComEd’s top lobbyist, secretly wear a wire against McClain and others in an attempt to get a better deal for himself for his role in the scandal. One secret recording Marquez made had McClain describing the jobs at ComEd as “an old fashioned patronage system.” In another, McClain told Marquez to not put anything in writing because, “all that can do is hurt ya.” That particular conversation unfolded over pizza inside a favorite Springfield Italian restaurant frequented by Madigan and other political insiders.
Prosecutors this week also revealed that Madigan’s son, Andrew Madigan, allegedly worked with McClain to try to get a job for a friend at utility giant People’s Gas. Jurors heard tape of McClain and Andrew Madigan joking about the utility company’s reluctance to do the favor, with McClain saying he wished they would just “obey."
Week 5: Nov. 11-14
With each key witness, defense attorneys for McClain and Madigan have sought to plant doubt about the testimony, whether that be the lack of explicit direction from Madigan, or in many cases, calling into question the credibility of the witnesses themselves.
In this week, an attorney for McClain pushed Marquez on whether he thought he was exchanging jobs at ComEd for action by Madigan. Marquez reiterated that he wanted the speaker to look favorably upon ComEd. Defense attorneys also pointed out that Marquez had lied about his criminal background when he purchased a gun and that he tried to conceal money from his wife during their divorce.
Week 6: Nov. 18-21
Prosecutors continued to hammer the “no-work” subcontracts Madigan and McClain allegedly arranged at ComEd during this week. They called to the stand Ed Moody, one of Madigan’s top political operatives, to testify about how he made $354,000 between 2012 and 2018 as a ComEd subcontractor despite doing little-to-no work for the power company. He said Madigan told him, “This is how I reward my good soldiers.”
The jury also heard how Madigan wanted McClain to push ComEd to place Juan Ochoa on the company’s board of directors. Recordings played in court showed that Madigan, whose district was rapidly becoming more Hispanic, regarded Ochoa’s appointment as a political favor to then-Democratic U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a leading Latino voice in the state’s congressional delegation.
Week 7: Nov. 25-27
The most highly anticipated witnesses of the trial took the stand: Former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis, also chairman of the city council’s Zoning Committee, was a key mole for the prosecution.
Solis secretly recorded several conversations he had with Madigan focused on using his influence on the City Council to get developers to hire the then-speaker’s firm for property tax appeal work. When Solis would talk about his efforts to steer developers to Madigan’s firm, Madigan said, “Thank you.”
But Solis’s testimony came with a lot of baggage. He acknowledged a litany of misdeeds: from accepting favors from developers even when they had business in front of the council, to accepting Viagra and massages that “turned sexual” that had been arranged for by a political operative.
Focusing on when Solis was in office, federal investigators outlined his sexual forays at massage parlors and shaking down developers for campaign contributions. Solis acknowledged his misdeeds to jurors, while also testifying how he steered developers to Madigan to curry political favor with the Southwest Side Democrat.
“I think they understand how this works, you know, the quid pro quo,” Solis is heard to be saying on one secret recording.
Week 8: Dec. 2-5
Under cross-examination by Madigan lawyer Dan Collins, Solis acknowledged engaging with prostitutes, including during a 2015 trip to Puerto Rico with other elected officials. Solis testified he stayed at the home of a state contractor at no cost and repeatedly denied that the contractor provided the prostitutes. Instead, Solis told Collins “we took up a collection” to pay the sex workers.
Collins also confronted Solis with years worth of tax records that showed the former alderman receiving $617,000 in payments from a company owned by his sister, Patti Solis Doyle, the 2008 campaign manager for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That money appeared to link back to the state contractor in Puerto Rico, who with Solis Doyle co-founded a company that paid state vendors with overdue state billings and pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars in late-payment interest penalties. Most of those payments were not declared as income on Solis’ tax forms, Collins revealed.
Solis left the stand after 21 total hours of testimony over six days. Prosecutors then focused attention on Michael Madigan’s son, Andrew Madigan. Prosecutors said Andrew Madigan got $43,000 from a deal that they say was linked to his father’s alleged corruption. Andrew Madigan has not been charged.