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* Tribune…
Madigan attorney Daniel Collins finally got his turn to poke holes in [Former Chicago Ald. Daniel Solis’] credibility and his motivations for cooperating. And he seemed to have plenty of ammunition.
Over and over, Collins got Solis to agree Madigan never demanded Solis hold up a project or take action against a developer because they had not hired Madigan’s firm to appeal their property taxes.
In fact, Collins pointed out, it was Solis who was dangling those ideas in front of Madigan, peppering his conversation with sentimental talk about family and his personal situation and, at the direction of the FBI, asking Madigan to help get him appointed to a state board when he retired from the City Council.
At the end of more than five hours of questioning, Collins, a former federal prosecutor, called up a transcript of a key 2018 meeting where Solis brought up positions with the Labor Relations Board or Commerce Commission, both of which he said were “very generous in their compensation.”
Collins spent hours going over Solis’ bank records and tax returns for several years beginning in 2014, during which Solis received a total of $617,000 from his sister Patti Solis Doyle.
Solis Doyle, who served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager for her 2008 bid for the White House, was a co-founder of a company called the Vendor Assistance Program along with Solis’ close friend Brian Hynes, a former Madigan staffer who’d had a falling out with the speaker years ago.
When the company was founded in 2010, the state of Illinois was struggling to pay its bills on time. Instead of having to wait on the state to pay, vendors could get paid by VAP, which would then collect on the interest the state eventually paid the vendor.
Solis Doyle and Hynes profited richly off the enterprise. And, Solis testified Monday, in exchange for referring his sister to Hynes, Solis Doyle paid him a cut of her earnings. Though Solis estimated it was $200,000, Collins showed bank statements totaling $617,000 in payments from 2014 to 2018, which were funneled from Solis Doyle’s company Solis Strategies to the alderman’s company named Solis Enterprises.
* Sun-Times…
Collins brought up Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, noting the importance of her office to VAP, a company that interacted with state vendors. The defense attorney said Solis’ campaign made a $55,400 donation to Mendoza’s in February 2018.
Collins also alleged that entities associated with Hynes paid Solis $55,500 that June.
“Are you aware, sir, that Brian Hynes made his own donations to Friends of Susana Mendoza?” Collins asked. “If he had, and then you put another $55,400 on it, he is far in excess of what he is allowed to donate to Ms. Mendoza?”
Eventually, Collins asked about Solis’ sale of an apartment “at the end of 2018,” around the time Solis formally signed his deal with the feds.
In the afternoon, Collins tried to recontextualize the wiretapped calls and secretly recorded videos jurors saw earlier at trial. One issue he focused on was a land transfer bill in the state Legislature that, had it passed, would have shifted a public parking lot in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood from state to Chicago ownership.
Prosecutors say Madigan tried to help move this ultimately-failed transfer along so that he could get his law firm tax work from the developers who eventually built on the site once they took it off the city’s hands. But Collins suggested there wasn’t any solid evidence establishing this motive. […]
Collins also interrogated Solis’ supposed desire for a state board position. The former alderman testified on direct examination that he raised the issue with Madigan at the government’s instruction. He also told Madigan on an Aug. 2, 2018 videotaped conversation that he’d continue to help Madigan with developments in his ward, despite not seeking aldermanic reelection a few months later.
“I’ve helped you in the past, I’m gonna continue to help you … there’s a lot of good stuff happening in my ward,” Solis told Madigan during that talk.
* Jon Seidel, the federal courts reporter for the Sun-Times…
Solis said he had two goals: His undercover work for the FBI, and the legitimate parking lot deal. He said one reason he brought McClain in was "his expertise and connections and relationships in Springfield."
— Jon Seidel (@SeidelContent) December 2, 2024
posted by Isabel Miller
Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 9:11 am
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Not sure how a large portion of this line of questioning does much of anything to impeach the evidence presented on the tapes.
Comment by Lincoln Lad Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 9:32 am
Which tapes, the ones of Bud explaining how property taxes work while they are pitching developers?
People are acting like Solis captured some sort of smoking gun when every time he tried to make it about getting Madigan business on the Chinatown deal, Madigan just moved on. Or with Union West, Madigan went out of his way to admonish Solis that he didn’t want the business tied to the zoning approvals. Then Madigan said it was fine to move forward with the zoning before they even knew whether they were going to get the Union West business.
Comment by Juice Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 9:52 am
Lots of questions raised here about Mendoza’s interactions with Hynes and Solis.
Comment by Frank Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 9:57 am
I’m just going to saw this broader point about this, no matter the outcome of this case if you name is being brought up in this case just kiss higher office good bye.
Comment by Peoples Republic of Oak Park Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 10:01 am
Watched part of the cross-examination in person yesterday, found it interesting how the defense counsel (at times) pronounced Solis’ surname in such a way so it could be heard as “sleaze”. Not sure how the ultimate impact on the jury will be. For a law student or an attorney, this week’s proceedings are a “master class” in cross-examination.
Comment by Ares Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 10:21 am
===Then Madigan said it was fine to move forward with the zoning before they even knew whether they were going to get the Union West business.===
I’m no lawyer, but wouldn’t this line of defense require MJM to take the stand? I don’t see that happening.
Comment by 47th Ward Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 10:24 am
- when every time he tried to make it about getting Madigan business on the Chinatown deal, Madigan just moved on. -
No he didn’t, he told Solis to stop calling it quid pro quo and then kept pushing the bill behind the scenes. He also went out of his way to try to pass it without having to vote for it himself, want to guess why?
Comment by Excitable Boy Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 10:30 am
===if you name is being brought up in this case just kiss higher office good bye===
Meh. If politics was that simple, everybody would win.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 10:45 am
==close friend Brian Hynes, a former Madigan staffer who’d had a falling out with the speaker years ago.==
I must be really behind the times, old or both. I never realized Brian and Madigan had a falling out?
Comment by low level Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 10:51 am
=== no matter the outcome of this case if you name is being brought up in this case just kiss higher office good bye. ===
I think we learned just a few weeks ago that being a criminal doesn’t matter to most voters when picking a candidate for higher office.
Comment by Just Me 2 Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 11:04 am
-if you name is being brought up in this case just kiss higher office good bye.-
Nope. COVID destroyed the statue of limitations on many targets. Plus, having your name brought up at a trial isn’t necessarily a disqualification .. in Illinois.
Comment by Steve Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 11:15 am
When vendors were not getting paid for 12 months or more, the vendor payment program Hynes put together kept a lot of businesses open. His wasn’t the only program, Jim Edgar was part of one too. You participated by choice, no one forced you to. It’s talked about now like it wasn’t a game changer for businesses possibly facing bankruptcy or closure. As I remember it, it was.
Comment by Lincoln Lad Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 11:41 am
- the vendor payment program Hynes put together kept a lot of businesses open. -
It probably did, but let’s not pretend this was an act of philanthropy. These programs were huge windfalls for the well connected insiders who were able to get in on them.
Comment by Excitable Boy Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 1:23 pm
===but let’s not pretend this was an act of philanthropy===
Literally nobody is.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 1:29 pm
===It probably did===
If most definitely did.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Dec 3, 24 @ 1:32 pm