Nearly seven years ago, two political insiders sitting in a City Hall office agreed: These days, you have to be careful how you talk.
Too many politicians are much too obvious about their corrupt intentions and self-dealing, said then-Ald. Danny Solis and Michael McClain, an ally of powerful Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.
“They say these outrageous things you can’t say anymore,” McClain said. “… They’re too blatant. It’s just kind of – in my world, Springfield, people openly talk about it.”
“So how does the Speaker deal with all this?” Solis asked, noting that the loose-lipped politicians they were discussing – like then-Democratic state legislators Luis Arroyo and Martin Sandoval and fundraiser Victor Reyes – were Madigan supporters.
“Well, he has surrogates,” McClain said. “A guy like me, he sends to go talk to Luis.”
“Smart,” Solis responded. “He’s gotta be one of the smartest, not just individuals, but elected officials, I‘ve met.”
Solis said that stood in stark contrast to his colleague in the City Council, longtime 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke, who brazenly carried around business cards touting his property tax law firm featuring his work helping reduce taxes for Trump Tower.
“You ever see the business cards he uses?” Solis asked McClain before they both shared a laugh.
That 2017 exchange, captured on secret camera by Solis and played for jurors Tuesday in Madigan and McClain’s corruption trial, offered jurors a fascinating look into the behind-the-scenes handwringing of two longtime power brokers like Solis and McClain — and even how they worried that it could invite trouble from federal investigators.
On the recording, in fact, McClain said the Department of Justice was planning to send 40 more prosecutors to Chicago. “They’ll wanna go after white collar crime,” McClain said.
And in a later conversation also played for the jury, McClain had even blunter words for Sandoval, then the powerful head of the Senate Transportation Committee known for playing fast and loose with the rules.
“Sandoval — that guy is a…He’s a piece of work,” McClain told Solis in a recorded phone call. “I mean, I’ve never wanted the guy on my side. I think he’s an indictment waiting to happen frankly.”
In the years that followed, Sandoval, Arroyo, Burke, McClain, and Madigan would all be facing federal indictment.
Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House before stepping down in 2021, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise.
He is charged alongside McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, who for years was one of Madigan’s closest confidants. Both men have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
Solis, prosecutors’ star witness, took the stand Tuesday for the third day in a row, as prosecutors played more video and audio he secretly recorded during his lengthy run as an FBI mole. Solis’s marathon testimony is expected to stretch into December.
The meeting where Solis and McClain talked about their loose-lipped peers was called to discuss a development project involving a parking lot in Chinatown, which was then in Solis’s 25th Ward. Solis wanted Madigan’s assistance navigating Springfield bureaucracy because the state would have to transfer the land to the city before development could begin.
It was unfolding against the backdrop of a bitter fight between Madigan, a powerhouse Democrat, and then-Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. If Rauner got word that Madigan supported the land transfer, he would certainly block it, McClain and Solis figured.
So McClain came up with a backchannel strategy he thought could be successful: Longtime Republican lobbyist Nancy Kimme would feel things out at the governor’s office and report back to McClain, who would in turn communicate with Madigan and Solis.
Solis, who by that point had been cooperating with the FBI for a year and a half, slipped in a reference to some back-scratching, appearing to promise that the Chinatown developers would give their business to Madigan’s private tax law firm.
“In the past, uh, I have been able to steer some work to Mike, and these guys will do the same thing,” Solis told McClain. “So I’m hoping whatever happens in this 2018 election that this is gonna go through.”
McClain was not visible on the video when Solis said that, and did not say anything in direct response.
“When you made the comment to Mr. McClain about steering past work to Mike, did Mr. McClain express to you visually or audibly any confusion?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur asked Solis on the stand Tuesday.
“No,” Solis said. And he testified that he did not in fact actually know whether the developers of the Chinatown project intended to give Madigan any business.
On the video, McClain responded by saying that if Kimme sensed Rauner was resistant to the plan, they could try to make inroads with J.B. Pritzker, who had announced his intentions to challenge Rauner in the 2018 gubernatorial race.
Solis’s testimony Tuesday followed a marathon session on the stand Monday, during which he took jurors through his own salacious legal and personal issues and his unprecedented decision to flip and go undercover for the feds.
Over nearly three hours, the jury heard about Solis’ sexual trysts at massage parlors, procuring erectile dysfunction pills from friends, an affair with his Chinese translator, a bag of cash handed over at a hotel in Shanghai, a breakup with his wife, and near financial ruin — all while he was heading up the City Council’s powerful Zoning Committee and taking gifts and favors from powerful friends.
“I made a mistake,” Solis said when asked why he accepted the favors. “I thought they were my friends and I was wrong.”
Solis’ highly anticipated testimony has provided a fascinating dive into one of the biggest public corruption cases in Chicago’s sordid history. It’s the culmination of a saga that began nearly eight and a half years ago, when FBI agents confronted Solis at his home in June 2016 and showed him evidence they’d gathered of his own misdeeds.
Solis has so far come across as soft-spoken, testifying in a voice so quiet he’s been reminded several times to move closer to the microphone.
After telling the jury Monday that he originally sought massages due to lower back issues, he at one point stood up on the witness stand for several minutes to stretch, remaining on his feet and leaning forward into the mic as he continued to answer questions.
Before his testimony resumed Tuesday, the judge said Solis had been outfitted with a body microphone in case he needed to stand again.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
