The Laski affair
Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Former City Clerk Jim Laski wrote a book while he was in prison. It’s self-published, but Laski has a website where you can buy it. Here’s the teaser…
Absentee ballots changed. Petitions were round-tabled. Who was involved in the “Hired Truck” scandal? How much did Daley know? But most importantly, did someone in City Hall help the Feds get Laski?
I’m not sure why that last point is the most important one, but whatever. I’ll be ordering my copy soon.
* Laski has been making the rounds on a promotional blitz. This is from ABC-7’s story…
In My Fall from Grace: City Hall to Prison Walls, Laski listed other Daley administration officials with whom he brokered Hired Truck deals. They include the mayor’s then-council floor leader Alderman Patrick Huels, former intergovernmental affairs director Victor Reyes, convicted patronage chief Robert Sorich, and convicted deputy water commissioner Donald Tomczak.
Laski insists there is no way the detail-oriented Daley could not have known about so many Hired Truck deals.
“This is a guy who…prides himself on detail. And he doesn’t know certain things? Selective amnesia,” said Laski.
* CBS-2…
Laski says Daley seemed, in his word, “paranoid” about federal investigations at city hall.
“On more than one occasion he’s asked me, ‘have you heard anything? Did you hear anything… from who?’ And he said, ‘the guys down the street. I mean the guys on Dearborn… or the FBI,” Laski said.
* Apparently, the guy points the finger of shame at a whole lot of people, including his old boss, Bill Lipinski…
The former clerk also implicated former Congressman Bill Lipinski, Laski’s mentor-turned-nemesis, even more deeply in the ghost payrolling that went on during Laski’s days as 23rd Ward alderman.
Laski said he hired a handful of employees at the congressmen’s direction who did remodeling work at Lipinski’s home and congressional office.
* The mayor’s office claims that Laski is just ginning up hype to sell books. No argument there, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The question is how does one believe Laski now? He was a crook, of that there is no doubt. We’ll have to wade through that book to see for ourselves if his allegations hold up, I suppose, or whether he’s just trying to pass blame.
The first question that comes to my mind is if he told the G about these allegations, and what, if anything, the feds did about it.
Discuss.
- Garp - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 9:27 am:
When the President of the US flys in to celebrate his 60th birthday the same day your patronage chief is convicted for fixing jobs I think the message is pretty clear to the federal prosecutors to lay off so it really doesn’t matter what Laski told them. Basically, their boss told them to move along-nothing to see here.
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 9:54 am:
Until he starts telling us he witnessed murders committed by Chicago pols and shows us where the bodies are buried, there isn’t any news here to rock our rocky world. Corruption is news in Minneapolis, not Chicago.
- Louis G. Atsaves - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 10:23 am:
He was also on the Spike O’Dell show today on WGN radio.
- Lefty Lefty - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 10:36 am:
We all know that most of the book is probably true. Is it to much to hope for that Daley or Blagojevich are indicted for something? The high-profile time-consuming trials get people’s attention, and if it happens maybe something will finally change.
I know. It is too much to hope for.
- Levois - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 11:08 am:
If high-profile time consuming trials get attention then shouldn’t George Ryan have been a warning shot across the bow? Shouldn’t things have changed with that?
- Snidely Whiplash - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 11:30 am:
Even after getting out of prison, this guy’s neurotic obsession with being “important” just never seems to end.
- Independent - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 11:47 am:
James Laski will become the Jose Canseco of Chicago politics. If you’re not familiar Canseco was the former baseball player who used steroids and then wrote a book about substance use among other MLB players. He was accused of being a liar as he cheated himself but his allegations have for the most part been proven true.
Same will happen in Chicago. Jackie Heard, Axelrod, and the rest of the Daley spin juggernaut will come out in full force to call Laski a liar because he too was a crook. However his allegations will largely be proven true.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 12:00 pm:
If he had stuff on others, why didn’t he make a deal? His “revelation” don’t help him much now.
- anon - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 12:02 pm:
Lipinski involved in ghost payrolling? I’m SHOCKED. The next thing will be a relavation that he’s paying his congressman/son’s chief of staff with his ‘charitable’ fund. Say it ain’t so.
- Budussy - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 12:02 pm:
Shocker, corruption and election fraud with Chicago Dem’s. Wish that city would wise up and vote republican for as Obama says “real change.”
- Anon - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 12:52 pm:
A friend recently made a very good point to me, talking about the Laski book. The Feds are on hold, waiting for the Sorich Appeal to be decided. They have said nothing on what cards (or tapes) they are holding. One thing is increasing obvious: a number of people have been wearing federal wires for some time.
So, those who think the worst is over for Daley, simply because no new indictments of cronies and top officials have been coming down lately, may well be wrong. An absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.
- Lefty Lefty - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 1:10 pm:
I think it was just that: a shot across the bow. Does every ship retreat or change course when the shot comes, especially if the captain of the ship thinks his ship is unsinkable? And couldn’t the next shot be a little bit closer to the captain’s quarters? And should I stop beating this metaphor to death?
Changing the way things are around here is going to take more than one trial (a total of 3, perhaps, not counting Sorich).
I can dream, can’t I?
- Captain America - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 5:55 pm:
Hired Truck was a Daley/Bridgeport scam from the word go. Daley had his buffers,but, of course he knew. Somehwhere I read soemthing that gave me the impression that the hired truck scam oringinated in his father’s adminstration. Although I hate to sound like John Kass, nothing seems on the square in Bridgeport. The fix appears to be in on every contract and deal. Tim Degan appears to be the Daley family consigliare.
- Rupert Pupkin - Wednesday, Feb 13, 08 @ 7:35 pm:
CHAIRMAN
Did you ever get such an order directly from MICHAEL Corleone.
[His lawyer shakes his head.]
CICCI
No — I never talked to him.
GEARY
Uh — Mr. CICCI could you, uh — amplify your answer a bit?
CICCI
Do what?
GEARY
Could you expand on your answer — I’m particularly interested in knowing — uh — was there always a buffer involved — .
[CICCI talks to his lawyer.]
– someone between you and your possible superiors, who gave the actual order?
CICCI
Right, yea a buffer — the family had a lot of buffers.
CHAIRMAN
Mr. CICCI you may find this very amusing but I promise you the members of this committee do not.