State House Speaker Mike Madigan on Thursday said he won’t convene a special committee to investigate an alleged cover-up of an unspecified rape and ghost payrollers – incidents mentioned in a email between Madigan confidant Mike McClain and members of Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration in 2012 — because of the “sensitivity of the matter.”
The refusal came a day after state House Republican Leader Jim Durkin asked the speaker to convene a House committee to launch an independent inquiry into the email, first disclosed by WBEZ.
Madigan’s refusal sparked a feisty response.
“We did not realize that ghost payrolling was too sensitive of a topic for the committee to investigate on behalf of Illinois taxpayers,” Durkin spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said in a statement.
A WBEZ report on Tuesday revealed McClain sent the email to two senior Quinn aides in a bid to win leniency for a worker in a disciplinary case. In it, McClain argued the man “has kept his mouth shut on Jones’ ghost workers, the rape in Champaign and other items.”
“He is loyal to the Administration,” McClain wrote in the email obtained by WBEZ.
In his refusal, Madigan said he discussed the situation with Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
“I spoke with the Governor and he confirmed the matter was referred to the appropriate authorities,” Madigan wrote to Durkin on Thursday. “Recognizing the sensitivity of the matter for any potential survivors, any investigation should be handled by the appropriate investigative entities without interference by the General Assembly.”
“These allegations are extremely troubling and I urge anyone with information to contact the appropriate authorities,” Madigan wrote in his letter.
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Pritzker’s office confirmed that Madigan spoke with the governor Thursday afternoon.
That conversation came after Pritzker told reporters at a Thursday morning news conference that he had not spoken with the fellow Democrat.
At that South Side event, Pritzker also told reporters that his administration had no other evidence of a “rape in Champaign” other than the email McClain sent. Asked how his administration would have handled such an email, Pritzker said he would have expected his staff to go directly to the state’s general counsel.
Asked about his own efforts to try to get to the bottom of the matter, Pritzker repeatedly said he had no investigative authority as governor, arguing the appropriate office is investigating the email: the Office of the Executive Inspector General.
“I want to do what I did, which is turn it over to someone who can actually go do an investigation. Even members of the House and the Senate can’t go knock on people’s doors and you know, get a subpoena or whatever in short order, get an answer the way that an investigative body can, in short order, because we have to refer this to a law enforcement or an appropriate authority as soon as humanly possible,” Pritzker said.
The governor’s office reiterated that later, saying “there are no circumstances where it would be appropriate for the Governor to start having conversations about possible crimes when they have been referred to the proper authorities.”
“The possibility of a rape and ghost payrolling mentioned in that disgusting email are extremely serious criminal issues, which is why the governor’s general counsel filed a complaint with the appropriate authority, the Office of the Executive Inspector General, which has the power to investigate and make a determination about next steps,” Pritzker spokeswoman Emily Bittner said in a statement. “The most urgent need is to get to the bottom of the facts of these potential cases so that other authorities have any information that can potentially aid in an investigation.”
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Madigan issued his own statement on Wednesday, saying he knew nothing of the “incident.”
“These are extremely serious and troubling allegations. I had no knowledge of the incident referenced in the story and only learned of this today,” Madigan said, a day after WBEZ posted its report and a copy of the email.
McClain, a former top lobbyist and confidant to Madigan, is under federal scrutiny as part of an ongoing investigation into ComEd’s lobbying practices in Illinois, a source told the Sun-Times. Neither Madigan or McClain have been charged with any wrongdoing.
And despite the negative headlines and a federal investigation, Madigan has been mum about his relationship with McClain. Asked whether Madigan should publicly disclose his current relationship with the controversial former lobbyist, Pritzker said he’d like to know “whether there’s any involvement.”
“I think it is appropriate for us to understand, you now, if there’s somebody who’s done wrongdoing. And I don’t know. We all have read your stories and others about the potential wrongdoings, but no indictments have been landed on that,” Pritzker said. “I think we should know. I would like to know whether there’s any involvement, but again, you have to get some facts about what crimes are actually being alleged here, specifically, in order to be able to ask appropriate questions about it.”
The email in question was about a state employee who worked as an administrator at the Illinois Department of Human Services facility in Downstate Rushville. It was sent to Quinn’s legislative affairs liasion and Quinn’s then chief-of-staff.
The employee also worked as a paid consultant to Pritzker’s gubernatorial campaign and most recently served as a consultant for correctional training revisions.
Pritzker’s office on Tuesday released the emails to the Sun-Times after the WBEZ story was posted online.
No other details were disclosed about the alleged rape referenced in the email or the identity of “Jones” in the mention of the ghost payrollers.
Quinn told WBEZ he knew nothing of the incidents McClain included in his email or any disciplinary case against the state worker.
“First I’ve heard of it,” Quinn told WBEZ.
