CHICAGO (CN) — Ex-Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan continued testifying in his own federal corruption trial on bribery and racketeering charges on Wednesday, making a few remarks that seemed to pin blame on his co-defendant Mike McClain.
The trial day started with Madigan’s attorney Dan Collins resuming the former speaker’s direct examination from Tuesday. Collins began with questions about a Nov. 13, 2014 email that McClain, then a contract lobbyist for energy company ComEd, sent ComEd’s vice president for governmental and external affairs Fidel Marquez.
Jurors saw the email during Marquez’ own testimony in November. In it, McClain claims “a friend of ours” — which jurors have heard was a euphemism for Madigan — wondered if there were “two Fidels.” One who is “totally responsive and engaging,” and one who “sometimes… is not with us.”
Madigan told Collins and the jury that those weren’t his thoughts.
“Did you authorize Mike McClain to express this sentiment?” Collins asked.
“No,” Madigan responded.
Madigan also denied that he instructed McClain to push ComEd in 2016 to accept a contract renewal with favorable work hour terms for Reyes Kurson, a law firm owned by Madigan’s associate Victor Reyes. In a Jan. 20, 2016 email to then-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, McClain said that if Reyes’ law firm didn’t get sufficient work hours with ComEd, “then he will go to our friend.”
“Our friend will call me and then I will call you. Is this a drill we must go through?” McClain asked Pramaggiore in the email.
Madigan once again told jurors he hadn’t told McClain to express this sentiment.
McClain goes back over 40 years with Madigan, with both having served as Illinois Democratic state representatives in the 1970s. McClain made the transition to lobbying in the 1980s and officially retired in late 2016 though he remained active in Springfield. Madigan would serve in the state House for 50 years and lead it as speaker for 36 — he only stepped down in 2021.
The jury has seen evidence that the pair remained close personally and professionally despite their diverging career paths — including several recorded conversations between the two where they discuss dinner plans. In a 2016 letter jurors saw early in the trial, McClain swore loyalty to Madigan and his wife Shirley.
“At the end of the day I am at the bridge with my musket standing with and for the Madigan family,” McClain wrote. “I will never leave your side, Shirley and Mike.”
When McClain’s attorney Patrick Cotter began his own cross-examination of Madigan, Cotter asked if Madigan’s friendship with McClain survived all their years together.
“It did, until recently,” Madigan responded.
The comment sparked a chorus of winces and “oohs” from those watching Madigan’s testimony.
Cotter got in his own lick in at the former speaker. The attorney asked if McClain helped arrange meetings between Madigan and the leaders of companies like ComEd on “multiple” occasions.
“I met with people from those companies, I don’t know if I’d call it multiple,” Madigan responded.
“Did you do it more than once?” Cotter asked.
“Yes,” the speaker answered.
“That makes it multiple,” Cotter said.
Madigan nevertheless told Cotter and the jury his office had a “generally” good relationship with McClain, and that he considered McClain one of his political advisors, “among many other people.”
The former speaker added McClain was responsive when he needed help with issues in Springfield. On the stand, Madigan said McClain helped him encourage ex-Illinois Democratic state representative Lou Lang to step down amid sexual misconduct accusations — of which the legislative inspector general eventually cleared him — in 2018.
Madigan said he believed part of the reason McClain was so responsive was because McClain respected him, and also because McClain wanted to maintain a good lobbying relationship with the speaker’s office.
“I was able to make requests of Mr. McClain, as I did with others,” Madigan told Cotter in a separate exchange.
Madigan nevertheless said he didn’t use McClain’s lobbying efforts to push his interests on ComEd or other players in Springfield. Regarding employers like ComEd and AT&T Illinois, he repeatedly denied he ever leveraged action by his office on those employers offering jobs and contracts to individuals Madigan and/or McClain referred.
The jury left after Cotter finished cross-examining Madigan, leaving the attorneys to hash out multiple issues that could impact prosecutors’ own cross-examination as well as their rebuttal case. U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey said jurors would only return after the attorneys had a chance to meet and confer on those issues and discuss them in court on Monday.
“At a minimum, it’s going to be a serious argument,” the judge said.
No trial proceedings are scheduled for Thursday, given the national day of mourning for President Jimmy Carter.