Feds tie Mapes to more alleged lies
Friday, Aug 18, 2023 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* Sun-Times…
When asked before the grand jury on March 31, 2021, whether McClain had “any contact” with Lang “for any purpose” between 2017 and 2019, Mapes said under oath, “I don’t know of any.”
It’s just one of many ways prosecutors have now used a monthslong wiretap of McClain’s phone to make their case that Mapes lied in 2021 and tried to block the feds’ aggressive yearslong investigation of Madigan and McClain.
They piled on further Thursday, despite an early setback in which a key call was stricken from the trial by U.S. District Judge John Kness. […]
Lang testified in McClain’s earlier trial about the Nov. 8, 2018, call in which McClain told him it was time to resign.
McClain called himself “an agent, somebody that cares deeply about ya, who thinks that you really oughta move on.”Lang had faced a separate allegation earlier that year.
* Hannah Meisel…
The obstruction of justice charge, which comes with a maximum of 20 years in prison, alleges Mapes gave false testimony about more than a dozen topics, including whether he knew McClain communicated with Lang in 2018, with some of those communications at Madigan’s direction.
“I have no knowledge or recall of that,” Mapes told the grand jury when prosecutors asked if he knew whether McClain was in contact with Lang.
But according to the wiretapped calls, Lang was a frequent topic of conversation between Mapes and McClain in 2018, especially that fall.
“My assignment is to tell Lou Lang he has no life in the House anymore,” McClain told Mapes in an Oct. 26, 2018 call.
Three days later, Mapes asked McClain for an update about the Lang situation.
“Hey, how’s your buddy Lou Lang doing?” Mapes asked, chuckling. “Have you delivered the bad news yet?”
* The Tribune…
In one call from Oct. 26, 2018, McClain told Mapes, “My assignment is to tell Lou Lang that he has no life in the House anymore.”
“You’ve had one discussion with him. Did you have more?” Mapes asked.
“I’m doing it in tiers,” McClain responded.
In a recorded telephone call from Oct. 31, 2018, McClain said he would wait until fundraising checks that they had directed Lang to disperse to other Democratic candidates cleared, “Then I gotta tell (Lang) he’s gotta move on, he has no future in the House.”
* WTTW…
Lang said on the call he needed to think things over before making a decision, but thanked McClain for “leveling” with him, stating he would never do anything to “damage my speaker or my caucus.”
Following his testimony, jurors heard more recorded phone calls and viewed email exchanges between McClain and Mapes in which they discussed the Lang situation. […]
In another call from Oct. 31, McClain reiterated that he had to tell Lang “he’s gotta move on, he’s got no more future in the House.”
Weeks later in a call on Nov. 15, McClain informed Mapes that Lang intended to “resign before the end of the calendar year.” Mapes then replied that he’d heard Lang was already informing other legislators of that decision.
* Off-topic, but McClain made some ugly sexist remarks when talking to Mapes, which could have an impact on the jury…
Judge Kness adjourned before the prosecution rested. They’ll be back Monday.
- walker - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 1:00 pm:
Still trying to figure out what these original questions had to do with the grand jury investigation into the ComEd/Madigan bribery case.
Spaghetti against the wall?
- low level - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 1:31 pm:
Lou Lang was loyal to a fault. He deserved better from an organization which placed such emphasis on that trait.
- Roman - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 1:42 pm:
== Still trying to figure out what these original questions had to do with the grand jury investigation ==
The feds ask lots of questions. The bigger mystery is why Mapes would lie about having conversations that did not pertain to ComEd, particularly when they were on tape. I get it, a big part of the feds’ case was resting on the theory that McClain was acting as Madigan’s surrogate and Mapes was reluctant to feed that narrative with his grand jury testimony. But why wouldn’t Mapes simply say that sometimes McClain was carrying water for Madigan (like with Lang) and sometimes he wasn’t, but McClain always wanted people to think he was because that was good for his insider image? A statement like that would have the benefit of being both un-indictable and true.
- Andrea Durbin - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 1:45 pm:
A. Skirt.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 1:51 pm:
Mapes and McClain live in 1959 Chicago.
Start there.
- Davos - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 1:58 pm:
=I never thought that she was the sharpest knife in the drawer=
Says the guy who wrote several incredibly stupid emails that led to his future imprisonment.
- Lincoln Lad - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:04 pm:
Talk about dull knives in the drawer? Mapes and McClain are top of the list! For Mapes to lie repeatedly when the lie served no real purpose… and to do so while under an immunity agreement demonstrates just what a knucklehead he is. He can’t bully his way out of this, and MJM can’t bail him out of the mess he made for himself.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:10 pm:
I wonder if this process has caused him to reflect at all on the many decades of terrible criminal laws he helped to pile up for the sake of building political power.
Probably not.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:10 pm:
Walker, the grand jury was investigating alleged corruption involving McClain and Madigan and the ComEd scheme. Mapes played a key role at the highest levels of the House Dem operation. He was in close contact with everyone and everything involved in the ComEd case.
The questions that Mapes allegedly was misleading about involved the role of McClain as an agent for MJM. I don’t think exploring how central McClain
was to the operation of the Madigan-led House is spaghetti. It’s more like looking under the obvious rocks.
My guess is that it will be more clear when the Madigan McClain trial begins. McClain has already been convicted for his role in the ComEd thing, the next step is whether the Feds can prove Madigan’s criminal involvement. Mapes testimony, if fully truthful, could have shed light on that question.
- Former Curmudgeon - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:14 pm:
=== it’s just trying to get a skirt into these positions ===
I remember being at a ComEd-related press conference in the old Blue Room many moons ago and seeing McClain physically nudge a young Black woman - apparently a ComEd or Exelon staffer - forward to the group of officials standing at the front of the room while saying, loud enough for me and much of the room to hear, “We need color.”
The guy obviously was enamored of his own power and influence - and had some serious challenges with self-awareness.
- handle the truth - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:23 pm:
I’m 100% guessing here, but if it’s obvious the guy I gave immunity to is lying about the simple questions, why wouldn’t I convict and make him face jail time or truly cooperate.
- Amalia - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:32 pm:
dear everybody: I’m assuming that you are a decent person and if someone made a racist remark you would check them on it and they would no longer be your pal. even if it happened on a phone conversation. same thing when discussing women. misogyny is not an editorial opinion. it is wrong.
- Sue - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:34 pm:
Will be interesting to see his sentence - Scooter Libby was a year and a day for the same offense before Bush granted him clemency
- Google Is Your Friend - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:36 pm:
- Roman - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 1:42 pm:
I would just offer this line, which is excerpted in the blog post:
“I have no knowledge or recall of that,” Mapes told the grand jury when prosecutors asked if he knew whether McClain was in contact with Lang.
Knowledge or recall. Knowledge or recall. Knowledge or recall. I don’t think under any circumstances you can even credibly spin what we’ve seen from Mapes in general as being honest, but it’s not a crime to forget and even the most detail-oriented people don’t remember everything. Is it possible this entire trial probably could have been avoided if he said something like, ‘I generally remember McClain doing some work, but I’d need to refresh my memory on specifics’? Maybe, but it says a lot, and nothing good for law enforcement, that the boss of these federal prosecutors is possibly going to be called as a defense witness (albeit one who is likely to be adversarial).
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 2:39 pm:
===but it’s not a crime to forget===
“I have no knowledge or recall of that”
He said he had “no knowledge” of that. That’s a lie.
- ArchPundit - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 3:01 pm:
I mean, the Democratic Party just fell apart without these Wizards behind the curtain. /s
The Democratic Party under Madigan was nothing but a tool for the House Dems campaigns. Being incompetent (which there is no evidence of) at least would have meant broad incompetence at least.
- Ryder - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 3:18 pm:
There are some bad apples….but why is the US Attorney calling the 13th Ward Organization a Criminal Enterprise?
- low level - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 3:38 pm:
==Says the guy who wrote several incredibly stupid emails that led to his future imprisonment.==
Not only emails but entire file cabinets. Brain dead dumb. The same guy who said dont put anything in writing seemingly put everything in writing.
I still dont get what MJM saw in this clown.
- Lincoln Lad - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 3:46 pm:
I don’t remember as the only defense here… has been destroyed by the volume of tapes indicating many conversations on the topic. Put on top of that the grant of immunity - Mapes just looks foolish for choosing to put himself in harm’s way when he could have gone home with no personal exposure. The feds let him off and he put himself back in the box.
- Candy Dogood - Friday, Aug 18, 23 @ 4:33 pm:
It is unbelievable to me that someone would decide that their entire legacy and career will be defined by going to prison to protect Mike Madigan.