* I wanted to highlight some excellent courtroom reporting today. Let’s start with Jon Seidel and Tina Sfondeles…
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker began Wednesday with commentary that lasted roughly 90 minutes. She started with McClain’s own words, caught on one of the many recordings jurors will hear: “We had to hire these guys because Mike Madigan came to us.”
“In short, Madigan wanted, the defendants gave, and the defendants got,” Streicker told the jury. “It’s that simple.” […]
She described McClain’s close relationship with Madigan to jurors. And she said job recommendations made by Madigan — typically through McClain — were treated as demands. By way of example, she described a recorded conversation McClain had with a senior ComEd employee.
“He told this employee that ComEd must immediately handle requests from Madigan, and that ComEd must understand that, when McClain sends over a resume, it’s not a request. It’s a demand to hire someone,” Streicker said.
* Jason Meisner and Ray Long…
Streicker alleged ComEd poured $1.3 million into payments funneled to ghost “subcontractors” who were actually Madigan’s cronies, put a Madigan-backed person on the ComEd board, and gave coveted internships to families in his 13th Ward, all part of an elaborate scheme to keep the speaker happy.
And, it worked, Streicker said, because over the eight years of the scheme, Madigan helped ComEd win three lucrative pieces of legislation, including the “Smart Grid” bill in 2011 and another bill in 2016 that held a rate structure in place and extended the life of two of the company’s nuclear plants.
“Mike Madigan was the most powerful person in the Illinois General Assembly,” Streicker said. “He (could) wield that power to make or break a piece of legislation. The defendants bribed him, and they did so by paying Madigan’s associates through jobs and contracts at ComEd.” […]
“Madigan exercised enormous power,” she said, saying his “power and control made him critical to ComEd’s success” because he could help or hurt ComEd’s agenda in Springfield.
“This is why defendants sought to corruptly influence Madigan,” Streicker said.
* Hannah Meisel…
But the government’s opening arguments – and their initial questioning of former State Rep. Carol Sente, D-Vernon Hills – sought to illustrate for the jury the amount of power Madigan wielded, not just as speaker of the Illinois House, but also as chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois and a prolific fundraiser for Democrats.
“In short, if Madigan wanted to stop a piece of legislation, he could kill it in any number of ways,” Streicker said. “At the same time…he controlled the purse strings for Democrats. They needed him to get elected and get re-elected…He held enormous power over the other legislators.”
As for McClain, Streicker called him a “double agent” on behalf of both ComEd and Madigan, who infamously did not own a cell phone or use email.
“When you heard something from McClain, you know it came from Madigan,” Streicker said.
* Matt Masterson…
According to prosecutors, Madigan did not own a cellphone and didn’t use email, but instead used McClain as a mouthpiece to make his demands known. For instance, when an intern’s resume was presented to ComEd by McClain for consideration, it wasn’t a request, “it’s a demand,” Streicker said.
“These were not mere recommendations,” she said. “The evidence will prove that these were demands and the defendants acted on them.”
* Sam Charles, Erik Runge and Julian Crews…
“The defendants sought to bribe Mike Madigan in order to influence his actions in the General Assembly, to ensure that he didn’t take action to hurt the company in the General Assembly and to reward past beneficial conduct to ComEd in the general assembly with legislation that was worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” Streicker told jurors. […]
The prosecution’s first witness, former north suburban State Rep. Carol Sente, was called to testify at the end of the day, and the first questions posed to her concerned the legislative process in the Illinois state capitol.
Asked to characterize Madigan’s control over the Illinois House of Representatives, Sente said it was “extremely firm.”
* Charlie Wojciechowski…
Much of the evidence is expected to come from ComEd’s former vice president of external communications, Fidel Marquez. He will be testifying in an attempt to reduce his own sentence.
Marquez took over for defendant John Hooker. His phone was among those tapped by federal authorities.
The prosecution said he will deliver an “insider’s view” of the crimes. In particular, he is expected to testify about the company’s use of sub-contractors, people who did little if any work, but were paid upwards of $4,500 dollars a month allegedly at the request of Madigan intermediaries. The jobs, prosecutors say, were used as political rewards.
The money was allegedly funneled through Dougherty’s lobbying firm. At one point, the government said, payments totalled more than $37,000 dollars a month.
The trial resumes today at 10. Follow along by clicking here.
*** UPDATE *** As noted above, former Democratic Rep. Carol Sente is the federal government’s first witness. She’s supposed to give jurors a look at how the legislative process operates. The part about Madigan controlling the Rules Committee is true, but as Hannah then points out, the part about the committee meeting in private is just plain false. Not sure how the heck the feds allowed that to happen…
* Meanwhile…
