The Tribune led the way on allegations that House Speaker Michael Madigan was corrupt and beat the drum over and over with the claim that employee bonuses he gave every year right after session ended weren’t a retention device but campaign related, so it’s only fitting to quote from their story:

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s office said Tuesday that federal prosecutors in Springfield have ended investigations into allegations that the veteran Democrat misused state resources and abused his power for political purposes and no charges have been filed.

Madigan, the Southwest Side lawmaker who also is the Democratic Party’s state chairman, released a copy of a letter he received last month from his attorney that said the U.S. attorney’s office for the central district of Illinois was “closing its investigation” of the speaker’s office.

Patrick Chesley, an assistant U.S. attorney, said he could not comment “one way or the other concerning that.” […]

“I am advised that there will be no charges stemming from any of these inquiries and that the investigation is closed,” said Madigan’s attorney, J. William Roberts, a former Republican federal prosecutor. […]

The allegations involving Madigan that were reviewed by prosecutors included questions surrounding House staff members who were dispatched to legislative districts during the 2000 campaign. Madigan aides said the staff members were merely bolstering the legislators’ abilities to provide constituent services, not providing political help to vulnerable candidates.

Madigan’s use of at least $142,000 in taxpayer funds to give bonuses to staff members, some of whom went on campaign payrolls, also came under the scrutiny of U.S. prosecutors. Madigan defended the bonuses as legitimate rewards for staffers working on legislative and government work and said they were not awarded as supplemental pay for political work.

Federal prosecutors in the spring of 2002 also subpoenaed Madigan’s office, Eastern Illinois University and the Illinois Board of Higher Education, seeking documents related to a labor dispute involving the school and its unionized steam plant workers.

It now turns out that most of the hype against Madigan in 2002 was merely a political device to make his daughter look bad in her 2002 campaign for attorney general. The Chicago US Attorney’s office was not involved with the probe begun in 2002, so he appears to be totally in the clear.