Madigan knew about secret payments to ousted political operative, unsealed court filing alleges

House Speaker Michael Madigan knew prematurely that a number of lobbyists would ship secret, back-channel payments to a prime lieutenant he’d ousted in a 2018 sexual harassment scandal, newly unsealed court data disclosed.

The revelation undermines the storyline the now-indicted ex-speaker put out when the Tribune first revealed his longtime confidant Michael McClain had lined up pleasant utility lobbyists to pay Kevin Quinn hundreds of {dollars} regardless of his abrupt departure.

“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,” McClain informed Madigan in an Aug. 29, 2018, phone name that was secretly recorded by the FBI, in accordance to a search warrant affidavit unsealed in U.S. District Court in Springfield on Friday.

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The 136-page affidavit was filed in May 2019 in help of a search warrant for McClain’s iPhone and different gadgets. That’s the identical month that the FBI executed a collection of raids on the houses of McClain and a number of other others tied to a sprawling probe that concerned alleged bribes paid by ComEd in change for Madigan’s affect on laws in Springfield.

Madigan, the Chicago Democrat dethroned final 12 months after a nationwide report 36 years as speaker, and McClain, a former House lawmaker who turned a contract lobbyist for ComEd and different purchasers, have been each indicted in March on racketeering- and bribery-related expenses.

McClain faces a separate trial in September within the ComEd bribes-for-favors case together with the utility firm’s former CEO and two different lobbyists.

None of the pending expenses spotlight the payments or point out Quinn, the brother of Madigan’s handpicked thirteenth Ward Ald. Marty Quinn. Neither Quinn has been charged with wrongdoing.

A lawyer for Madigan had no remark Monday.

The affidavit famous Madigan and McClain have been considered on the time as “subjects” of a far-reaching investigation into public corruption. It additionally signaled that McClain carried out many assignments for the speaker and acted as a digital surrogate even after the lobbyist retired in 2016.

But the disclosure that Madigan had talked on the cellphone to McClain in August 2018 about plans to assist out Quinn regardless of his ouster within the sexual harassment scandal raised doubts about the speaker’s sincerity in addressing #MeToo points.

When the Tribune first disclosed the payments three years in the past, a Madigan spokeswoman issued an announcement: “If a group of people were attempting to help Kevin Quinn, the speaker was not a part of it.”

Quinn was pressured out of the speaker’s political and governmental group over alleged sexual harassment of Democratic marketing campaign employee Alaina Hampton.

Hampton later reached a settlement with Madigan-related marketing campaign funds after she filed a federal swimsuit contending she was blackballed from the speaker’s political group as a result of she reported Kevin Quinn’s actions.

In an announcement Monday, Hampton stated that after she spoke out about sexual harassment she was “gaslit, publicly disparaged and blocked from employment.”

“At the time the news broke that Quinn was being financially taken care of by lobbyists aligned with Speaker Madigan, the speaker’s spokesman publicly denied any involvement,” Hampton stated. “Today, the truth has come out, as we always knew it one day would.”

In the recorded Madigan-McClain dialog from August 2018, the speaker acknowledged the cost plans to Quinn, responding “yeah, yeah,” in accordance to the affidavit unsealed in Springfield final week.

After McClain requested if the speaker wished to inform others of the plan, Madigan replied, “I think I ought to stay out of it,” in accordance to the affidavit.

“That’s what I think,” Madigan allegedly stated. McClain replied: “I’ll take care of it.”

The affidavit alleged Madigan’s assertion about staying out of it meant “he wanted to be able to appear to have no knowledge of the payments.”

At one level, McClain is quoted as confiding to an unidentified individual whom Madigan deliberate to get sworn in as speaker after which “intended to help” Quinn.

The Tribune first reported in 2019 that as a lot as $10,000 in payments had been despatched to Kevin Quinn from McClain and different present and former utility lobbyists. The tally rose to at the very least $31,000 because the Tribune gained entry to extra financial institution data.

The new federal filing confirmed the plan McClain outlined known as for lobbyists to every give $1,000 to $2,000 a month for six months.

The individuals who despatched Quinn checks embody among the most-clouted Democratic lobbyists in Springfield. Like McClain, they’d ties to Madigan, ComEd or each.

They included Will Cousineau, who payments himself because the speaker’s longest-serving political director; former Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, as soon as a member of Madigan’s management group; Tom Cullen, a former House staffer and ComEd lobbyist who later labored for Ameren; and Michael Alvarez, a former Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner who lobbied the town of Chicago for ComEd.

Cousineau’s agency, Washington-based Cornerstone Government Affairs, and Bradley not are a part of ComEd’s lineup of lobbyists.

Emails the Tribune additionally obtained in 2019 confirmed that McClain wrote to the lobbyists that the contracts to Quinn would final for “six months, maximum.” At least 4 of the checks have been signed by McClain’s spouse from the couple’s joint account.

McClain additionally thanked the lobbyists for “helping out Kevin Quinn.”

A few weeks later, Madigan wrote an op-ed within the Tribune about the sexual harassment tradition on the Capitol. The speaker promised he had “made it a personal mission to take this issue head-on and correct past mistakes.”

“I wish I would have done so sooner,” Madigan wrote in the piece revealed Sept. 20, 2018.

With shockwaves from the nationwide #MeToo motion nonetheless reverberating by way of the Capitol, McClain acknowledged the potential for backlash if the back-channel association got here to gentle.

“I cannot tell you how important it is to keep all of this confidential,” McClain warned Quinn in one other electronic mail. “These men are sticking their necks out knowing full well if it goes public before you are exonerated they will get the full blast from the ‘MeToo’ movement. So, please honor the confidentiality.”

rlong@chicagotribune.com

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com