Former House Speaker Michael Madigan was grilled at his corruption trial on Tuesday about a comment caught on federal wiretaps, when Madigan said he “put a knife” into then-Senate President John Cullerton during a meeting with Gov.-elect JB Pritzker.
In the November 2018 conversation, Madigan’s longtime confidant and co-defendant Michael McClain, asked the speaker how his meeting with Pritzker had gone. “I think it went pretty well… I put the knife into Cullerton three or four times,” Madigan replied.
With Madigan on the witness stand for a second day of cross-examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu played the recording and asked him, does Cullerton have a relationship with your family?
Madigan confirmed that Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, was godfather to his son.
“And you’re talking about putting a knife into Cullerton is that right?” Bhachu asked.
“Correct,” Madigan said.
“You were figuratively discussing putting a knife into Cullerton,” Bhachu clarified.
With a chuckle, Madigan repeated, “correct.”
Bhachu pointed out Cullerton was not at the meeting with the incoming governor, so Madigan had figuratively “elected to put a knife into his back.”
Why?
“I had a meeting with the governor and I don’t remember the context, but prior to that meeting I had had a serious disagreement with Mr. Cullerton,” Madigan said. “He had decided to use campaign money on negative advertising on me. It led to a very serious dispute.”
Madigan testified he didn’t recall specifically what he told Pritzker, but “I may have told him about the negative ads.”
“This was a general election…time for Democrats to come together, not be fighting with each other,” he said.
The exchange came as Madigan had repeatedly tried to distance himself from tapes on which he promised alderman-turned-FBI mole Daniel Solis he would help Solis get a cushy board seat during the same conversations in which Solis promised to help Madigan get business for his private law firm.
Madigan, on secret recordings made by Solis, assured Solis he would sit down with the governor and recommend Solis for a cushy state appointment. But when questioned by prosecutors, Madigan said he was merely promising he would put Solis’s name in a file of potential recommendations.
“(Solis is) indicating to you repeatedly he wants to try to bring potential clients to your law firm,” Bhachu asked, regarding a 2018 conversation in which Solis and Madigan discuss the potential appointment.
“That’s what he’s saying, yes,” Madigan said on the witness stand.
“You say right afterward ‘don’t worry about it’ … you also say subsequent to that ‘just leave it in my hands.’ What are you referring to?” Bhachu asked. “… You’re indicating to him you’ll take care of his appointment to the board?”
“I was developing a file of potential recommendations to Mr. Pritzker to if he were to be elected governor,” Madigan said. “There were many items in the file, I didn’t get to a final decision on recommendations until a lengthy time after this conversation.”
“When you said just leave it in my hands, what you meant was ‘maybe I’ll recommend you, maybe I won’t, I’ll make decision later’?” Bhachu asked dryly.
Madigan is on the stand for his second day of cross-examination after testifying for most of Monday afternoon. He is expected to wrap up his testimony later Tuesday after his own attorneys get a chance to question him further.
His surprising decision to take the stand also gave prosecutors the chance to show jurors potentially damning evidence that had previously been excluded from the trial, such as a tape on which he and McClain chuckle about how some ComEd contractors “made out like bandits” for doing little work, and a videotaped interview on which Madigan describes his involvement in the old patronage system.
On direct examination last week, Madigan got the chance to tell his own story, including long anecdotes about growing up in a strict Southwest Side household and coming up in politics with an eye toward helping people. Madigan repeatedly denied wrongdoing, disavowing potentially incriminating pieces of evidence that could not be explicitly tied to him and giving innocuous explanations for the evidence that could.
He and and McClain, 77, of downstate Quincy, are charged in a 23-count indictment alleging that Madigan’s vaunted state and political operations were run like a criminal enterprise to amass and increase his power and enrich himself and his associates.
In addition to alleging bribery schemes involving ComEd and AT&T Illinois, the indictment accuses Madigan of pressuring developers to hire the speaker’s law firm and trying to win business by secretly supporting legislation to transfer state-owned land in Chinatown to the city so developers could build a high-rise.
Both Madigan and McClain have denied wrongdoing.
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