* WTTW…

Michael Madigan last week testified at his landmark corruption trial that he became “very angry” when he learned his associates had been doing little or no work for years after receiving contractor jobs with utility giant Commonwealth Edison.

But on Monday, jurors heard a wiretapped phone call in which the longtime House speaker seemed to laugh off the notion that some had “made out like bandits” while doing essentially no work.

That call was played in court during Madigan’s third day on the witness stand as government prosecutors launched into their cross-examination of the man who had long been Illinois’ most powerful politician. […]

Before Madigan retook the witness stand Monday afternoon, attorneys in the case spent the entire morning arguing over which issues Madigan could actually be questioned on — including the so-called “bandits” tape.

* Tribune…

Instead of leaning back in his chair and talking directly to the jury, as he had on direct examination, Madigan was more hunched, peering directly at Bhachu standing at the lectern and at times looking down through the eyeglasses perched at the end of his nose.

He often attempted to answer “yes” or “no” questions by offering extensive context, which prompted Bhachu to repeatedly ask him to listen to what he was asking.

At another point, Bhachu asked if Madigan if he thought another ComEd contractor, longtime 13th Ward precinct captain Edward Moody, was an “honest person.”

Madigan paused for several seconds, prompting Bhachu to interject: “That’s a yes or no question, by the way. Was Ed Moody honest?

“Not all the time,” Madigan said.

* Sun-Times Federal Courts Reporter Jon Seidel…

Bhachu, on McClain: "Would you reciprocate?"

Madigan: "Not that I recall."

Bhachu: "You never told him that you held him in high regard or you appreciated his friendship, you never told him that?"

Madigan: "Not that I recall."

— Jon Seidel (@SeidelContent) January 13, 2025

* Sun-Times…

Still, the most damaging part of Madigan’s testimony may have come near the end of the day, after Bhachu asked about Madigan’s “low” tone of voice in the meeting with Solis. Jurors first saw the video recording in November, but Bhachu played it for them again with the 82-year-old Madigan on the stand — visibly older and grayer than he was in his exchange with Solis more than seven years earlier.

Solis secretly recorded the meeting after agreeing to work undercover for the FBI in a bid to avoid prison for his own alleged wrongdoing. Madigan can be seen waving his hand before his face appears in the left side of the frame, as he lectures Solis about having used the words “quid pro quo” in a previous chat.

“You shouldn’t be talking like that,” Madigan told Solis on July 18, 2017. “You’re just recommending our law firm. … Because if, if they don’t get a good result on the real estate taxes, the whole project would be in trouble.”

Madigan testified last week that he thought he’d sent a message to Solis, in that moment, that he wouldn’t be part of a “quid pro quo.” But Bhachu on Monday went on to cite at least five other examples of Solis suggesting such an arrangement.

* Courthouse News…

Madigan nevertheless told Collins last week he “never heard anything negative” about Solis when considering a recommendation to Pritzker’s administration on his behalf.

“I didn’t hesitate. I had a long history of helping Mr. Solis,” Madigan told Collins.

Bhachu hammered on this apparent contradiction — how Madigan decided to help Solis and said he had never heard anything negative about him, but was still surprised and concerned over what must have looked like Solis’ repeated ethical lapses. […]

Blakey gave Madigan’s attorneys until Tuesday morning to address the question, but said the former speaker “isn’t leaving the stand” until he gets a definitive answer.

* Capitol News Illinois…

The courtroom, packed with so many onlookers that court officials opened a second overflow room with a video feed, watched as Bhachu questioned Madigan about his efforts to help find employment for the son of longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush. […]

“This is a guy I’m gonna wanna help somewhere along the road,” Madigan said of Rush in another wiretapped call in August 2018, a little over a decade after his sentencing. […]

“You knew he’d abused his position of public trust?” Bhachu asked of Rush’s taxpayer-funded job with the state prison system.

“Ten years prior,” Madigan replied, going on to say that he was interested in how Rush was “trying to rehabilitate himself,” noting he’d spent five years doing community outreach for a church on Chicago’s South Side. […]

McClain never found a job for Rush, even after asking a ComEd official about him months later in a phone call jurors heard earlier in trial. But in a newly introduced exhibit Monday, Bhachu showed Rush’s temporary $20-per-hour consultant contracts with one of Madigan’s campaign funds for the fall of 2018 into the beginning of 2019. The former speaker testified that Rush worked on legislative campaigns that election cycle.