Jury sees more evidence surrounding payments to Madigan campaign worker ousted for sexual harassment

CHICAGO – On the eve of his retirement announcement in late 2016, longtime Statehouse lobbyist Mike McClain wrote letters to longtime colleagues, expressing his appreciation for them.

In one letter – shown to four federal juries in the last two years – McClain effusively praised his close friend, then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, referring to him as his “real client” and pledging that “at the end of the day I am at the bridge with my musket standing with and for the Madigan family.”

McClain also co-opted the language of war in another letter sent to loyal Madigan campaign foot soldier Kevin Quinn. At the bottom of the note, which quoted from the memoir of United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, McClain wrote Quinn an additional message in handwriting that ended with a directive:

“Please stay in the foxhole with the speaker!”

Less than 2 ½ years later, FBI agents would collect that letter in a search of Quinn’s Chicago home as evidence in the feds’ sprawling investigation into Madigan and his inner circle. And on Monday, a jury saw the letter as prosecutors began their third week presenting evidence in their bribery and racketeering case against both Madigan and McClain.

But in the time between McClain’s retirement letter and the FBI raid in May 2019, it was Quinn who was the beneficiary of platoon-like loyalty from his fellow Madigan acolytes.

Quinn was ousted from the speaker’s political organization after being publicly accused of sexual harassment in early 2018 at the height of the #MeToo movement. As jurors first heard last week, McClain arranged payments for Quinn later that year from a small group of lobbyists close to the speaker.

On Monday, the jury heard more calls from the day McClain arranged the payments in late August 2018. The first call was to longtime Democratic House member-turned-lobbyist John Bradley, who was less than eager to participate in McClain’s scheme, pointing out that it was “such a delicate thing – that could really hurt us.”

But he still agreed to $1,000 monthly checks for Quinn from his lobbying and law firm, which the jury also saw on Monday along with the checks from McClain and three others.

“I want you in the room,” McClain told Bradley.

“Thank you, Hamilton,” Bradley joked back, an apparent reference to the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” which was still enjoying peak popularity in 2018.

After a few more calls later in the morning on Aug. 28, 2018, McClain then spoke with Madigan.

“So, Speaker, I put four or five people together that are willing to contribute to help a monthly thing, for the next six months like I mentioned to you for Kevin Quinn,” McClain said before asking whether Madigan wanted to tell Quinn’s brother, Chicago Ald. Marty Quinn, about the arrangement or if he should.

“Yeah, I think I ought to stay out of it,” the speaker replied.

McClain then called Ald. Quinn, who told him he also would “rather stay in the dark” about the payments to his brother.

The Chicago Tribune first reported the feds’ interest in the checks McClain arranged for Quinn in 2019, citing emails to the group thanking them for their “wonderful sacrifice” and warning Quinn to “keep all of this confidential.”

Madigan vehemently denied involvement in McClain’s efforts to pay Quinn after the Tribune’s report. Last week, defense attorney Daniel Collins set the table for continued denial during cross-examination of another participant in the payments to Quinn, longtime Madigan staffer-turned-lobbyist Will Cousineau, who said he was “confused” about whether the speaker really knew the extent of McClain’s plan.

Quinn’s accuser, political strategist Alaina Hampton, is expected to testify as early as this week.

Also on Monday, the jury heard more wiretapped recordings from the tense hours and days after Madigan fired his longtime chief of staff Tim Mapes after his own sexual harassment allegations were made public in early June 2018.

McClain stepped away from a wake to take a call from Madigan the afternoon of Mapes’ allegations and subsequent firing, telling the speaker that the “only tears” he’d shed that day were over the whole situation. McClain then pivoted to asking permission to contact a crisis management public relations firm on Madigan’s behalf.

A few days later, Madigan updated McClain on the progress he’d made speaking to women on the Democratic State Central Committee, and told him that his new chief of staff, who was a woman, had called every female member of the House Democratic Caucus to ask “what we can do better or different.”

In late June, McClain asked Madigan what he thought of Democratic strategist Anita Dunn, who the speaker’s inner circle was vetting to handle PR in the wake of the harassment allegations that had hit Madigan World in recent months.

“Oh I think she’s fine,” Madigan said. “I think she’s fine, yeah.”

McClain talked up her credentials, telling the speaker she’d “do a good job for ya.”

“Will and I loved the optics of it,” McClain said, referring to Cousineau, who’d been the first to suggest getting a “real PR firm” for Madigan in a wiretap the jury heard last week.

“She’s part of the #MeToo movement. She’s got clients that are also part of the #MeToo movement,” McClain said. “She’s obviously a progressive. She comes from a history of working for Democrats. And if our goal is really to reelect you as Speaker, and tamp down some of this negative stuff … we like the optics but want you to start thinking about it.”

Madigan ended up contracting with Dunn and paying her $200,000 from campaign accounts. It wasn’t until last year that NPR reported Dunn had been doing so while Hampton received support on her case from Dunn’s firm, which partnered with the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. Dunn’s firm eventually apologized to Hampton.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.