Two months after the feds made a big move on allies of then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in 2019, one longtime lieutenant of the Southwest Side Democrat reached out to another.
“Seriously, how are you doing?” Tim Mapes asked Michael McClain by email in July 2019.
Mapes had served for two decades as Madigan’s chief of staff. McClain was the speaker’s longtime friend. The FBI had raided the homes of McClain and others with ties to Madigan in May 2019.
McClain complained to Mapes of “psychological pressure,” and he warned they probably shouldn’t speak.
“I do not think we should talk in person or on the phone for a while,” McClain wrote to Mapes on July 16, 2019. “I cannot explain but trust me this is serious.”
Federal prosecutors on Monday pointed to that and other emails between Mapes and McClain as they kicked off the second week of Mapes’ trial for perjury and attempted obstruction of justice. Mapes is accused of trying to block the feds’ aggressive pursuit of Madigan and McClain, who now face criminal charges of their own.
McClain was right to be concerned about speaking on the phone, as his had already been wiretapped by the feds for several months. During that time, Madigan had forced Mapes to resign as chief of staff over unrelated bullying and harassment allegations.
Evidence entered in Mapes’ case Monday seemed to speak to the issue of whether Mapes could have been caught off guard by questions he was asked in front of a grand jury March 31, 2021. Mapes spent two hours fielding more than 650 questions from prosecutors that day, but the feds say he lied on seven occasions about work that had been done by McClain for Madigan.
Mapes’ lawyers have insisted he either didn’t know the answers or couldn’t remember. They’ve also complained that the feds rarely showed Mapes any documents or played any recordings for him to help refresh his memory.
Monday featured a surprise ruling from U.S. District Judge John Kness, who said he would not block defense attorneys from calling Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu to the witness stand. Bhachu, the chief of the public corruption section in the U.S. attorney’s office, has long been at the center of the high-profile Madigan investigation.
Bhachu also helped question Mapes before the grand jury.
Jurors heard a colorful bit of testimony from retired FBI Special Agent Brendan O’Leary, after he had testified Thursday that Madigan was “different from any other politician I’ve seen,” because he didn’t use a cellphone or send emails or text messages.
On Monday, O’Leary returned to the stand and took the description further, explicitly comparing Madigan to “a head of a mafia family.”
Meanwhile, prosecutors acknowledged that Mapes’ trial is taking longer than expected, and they may not rest their case until late in the week.
The series of emails highlighted Monday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz, with the help of FBI Special Agent Ryan McDonald, opened a window into the minds of Madigan’s close confidants as the feds’ probe of Madigan broke into the open in 2019.
In January 2020, after WBEZ reporters confronted McClain at Chicago Cut Steakhouse, McClain sent Mapes an email saying, “I got a good spanking from my lawyer and [McClain’s wife] for talking to the media … but I am glad I did. Now I will avoid them but I do not like all these body blows with no public defense.”
Mapes wrote back, “It is very tough to just sit and take it. Mjm was always good at standing down. However he would internalize it a lot.”
“Mjm” was shorthand for Michael J. Madigan.
The back-and-forth emails gave jurors a glimpse into the close relationship between the two men. They also seemed to underscore the feds’ contention that Mapes was well aware of the federal investigation and its key points before he wound up in front of the grand jury.
ComEd was charged with bribery in July 2020, and McClain was finally indicted with three others in November 2020, spilling many key allegations into the open.
Mapes then sat for an interview with prosecutors and federal agents in February 2021. McDonald, who attended that interview, acknowledged for one of Mapes’ attorneys Monday that Mapes was not asked during the interview whether McClain performed assignments for Madigan, nor was he asked about other key allegations against Madigan and McClain.
However, McDonald confirmed for prosecutors that many of those topics appeared on a grand jury subpoena that had been delivered to Mapes. And McDonald told the jury that authorities had planned to question Mapes further about McClain. But once they started asking those questions, McDonald said the interview was ended.
