Madigan Leaves Witness Stand Expressing Regret Over 'Any Time Spent w/Danny Solis'

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan leaves the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago after a Jan. 3, 2024, hearing that delayed his trial. A year later, Madigan’s trial is wrapping up after the former speaker took the stand in his own defense. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com

CHICAGO – After Michael Madigan spent several hours facing blistering cross-examination in his federal corruption trial, the former Illinois House speaker on Tuesday made a rare candid remark about the yearslong investigation that landed him on the witness stand in a Chicago courtroom.

“We all have regrets in life,” Madigan said. “And one of my regrets is that I ever had any time spent with Danny Solis.”

Read more: Madigan takes witness stand, denying he traded ‘public office’ for ‘private gain’ | Madigan to take witness stand in his corruption trial

Longtime Chicago Ald. Danny Solis’ cover was blown nearly six years ago, when the Chicago Sun-Times revealed him to have been cooperating with the government since 2016. Less than a week later, a second bombshell dropped: Another FBI mole had secretly recorded Madigan at his law office in 2014 during a meeting with a potential client that was arranged by the alderman. Solis had been chair of the Chicago City Council’s zoning committee, while Madigan had for decades been a partner of a law firm that specialized in property tax appeals.

The full extent of Solis’ cooperation against Madigan – including his own secret recordings of their meetings – wouldn't become known until much later. But the former speaker now faces 23 counts of bribery and other public corruption charges. 

In the 1 ½ years leading up to the revelation about Solis’ double life, Madigan and the alderman had gotten closer after decades of a more casual political alliance. In June 2017, the speaker made an out-of-the-blue phone call to Solis asking for an introduction to the developer behind a proposed apartment complex in Chicago’s booming West Loop, part of Solis’ 23rd Ward. 

Unbeknownst to the speaker, Solis had been cooperating with the feds for the past year and the call reignited the FBI’s interest in Madigan, which had been mostly dormant since 2014, according to prior testimony from an agent in charge of the investigation. 

Read more: Ex-Chicago Ald. Danny Solis, who secretly recorded Madigan for FBI, takes witness stand | ‘You know why I’m interested’: Wiretaps, secretly recorded videos show Madigan recruiting business to his law firm

‘Just leave it in my hands’

The gradual uptick in Solis’ phone calls and meetings with Madigan – including his solicitation of the speaker’s assistance with an ultimately doomed land deal – was orchestrated by the FBI. So too was the alderman’s eventual request that Madigan help him get appointed to a lucrative state board position.

While Madigan projected an air of relaxed confidence under questioning from his own attorney last week, the former speaker’s answers didn’t come as easily during cross-examination Monday and Tuesday, including on questions about his dealings with Solis.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu grilled Madigan about why he’d agreed to forward Solis’ name to newly elected Gov. JB Pritzker in the fall of 2018 for consideration to a high-paying state board. Bhachu pointed out that the speaker asked Solis to send him a resume even after the alderman repeatedly insinuated that he viewed the favor as an exchange for introducing Madigan to more potential law clients.

Read more: In contentious cross-examination, prosecutor accuses Madigan of not telling ‘the whole truth’

“And you say, ‘just leave it in my hands,’” Bhachu asked the former speaker of an exchange during his meeting with Solis in August 2018 where the pair went over a list of state boards and commissions.

“I would put it in my file and potentially give it to Pritzker,” Madigan replied, softening what Solis had characterized as a promise during his time on the witness stand in November.

Madigan never made the recommendation before the January 2019 revelation about Solis’ FBI cooperation.

Read more: Jurors see list of Madigan’s job recommendations given to newly elected Gov. Pritzker

“So this is after repeated statements by Solis where he’s tying you – doing something for somebody in your official capacity – to you getting law firm business, right?” Bhachu asked. 

“That’s what Mr. Solis was doing and I was just carrying along the conversation,” Madigan said.

The former speaker had already claimed twice during Bhachu’s questioning Monday and Tuesday morning that he knew what Solis was insinuating on multiple occasions in 2017 and 2018 but opted to give non-answers to what he deemed inappropriate questions instead of confronting him.

The one instance in which Madigan did confront Solis in 2017 was after one of their first phone calls about the West Loop developer. In that June 2017 call, Solis explicitly used the phrase “quid pro quo” when trying to explain that the developer understood he’d approve the zoning changes needed for the project contingent on becoming Madigan’s client – a lie directed by the FBI.

Still, Bhachu pointed out, the speaker went ahead with arranging the meeting with the developer, and in a short confrontation with Solis before the meeting began a few weeks later, Madigan admonished him for using the phrase “quid pro quo.”

“You shouldn’t be talking like that,” Madigan said on Solis’ secretly recorded video. “You’re just recommending our law firm because if they don’t get a good result on the real estate taxes, the whole project would be in trouble. Which is not good for your ward. So you want high quality representation.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah,” Solis said in reply.

The former speaker testified that he believed Solis had “gotten the message” that “there was not gonna be a quid pro quo” and was chastened by his rebuke.

Read more: ‘You shouldn’t be talking like that’: Madigan scolded alderman-turned-FBI mole for bringing up ‘quid pro quo’

'That was a lie, wasn’t it?’

Prosecutors have long maintained Madigan was giving Solis a “false story” as cover. Bhachu on Monday accused the former speaker of cooking up the rationale.

“That was a lie, wasn’t it?” Bhachu asked. “You knew on that day there was no threat to the project.”

Madigan exhaled in a sort of laugh after having explained that property taxes are “an important element of development,” prompting Bhachu to ask: “Is there something funny about my question, sir?”

Returning to the subject on Tuesday morning, Madigan insisted this week that property taxes were always a legitimate concern for a large development. In fact, the former speaker’s firm had represented the property’s previous occupant when it was an addiction treatment center whose not-for-profit status exempted it from property taxes. Because the project was a tear-down development in an up-and-coming area of the city, the eventual cost of those taxes was less certain than comparable properties.

When Madigan attorney Dan Collins got another chance to question his client after Bhachu’s initial cross-examination, he also asked the former speaker why he’d continued interacting with Solis after the “quid pro quo” episode in 2017.

“I felt I had been effective in delivering a message that there would be no 'quid pro quo,'” Madigan said. “And then and over time, I gave him the benefit of the doubt."

After a pause, he added that having spent any time with Solis was “one of my regrets.”

Also on Tuesday, Madigan’s longtime law partner Vincent “Bud” Getzendanner took the stand, his sharp memory for exact dates and other details demonstrating why he and the former speaker were well-matched. His dry commentary also mirrored Madigan’s as he answered Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker’s question about having “worked together for decades” with a caveat that drew titters from the courtroom.

“Decades is such a harsh word, but yes,” Getzendanner replied.

Madigan and Getzendanner formed their firm of the same name in the early 1970s after having met at Chicago’s Loyola Law School the previous decade. At first, their practice was more general, but over several years the pair began to specialize in property tax appeals.

In his testimony, Getzendanner described the firm’s conflict of interest policy that Madigan and previous defense witnesses described on the witness stand. To avoid even the appearance of a conflict, Getzendanner said, he and Madigan would have “at least one or two annual meetings” with top lawyers from the speaker’s office to identify and protect against any existing and potential clients who might have significant business with the state.

Many things, according to Getzendanner, would be an automatic disqualifier for a potential client. Getzendanner testified that when he learned in 2015 that nursing homes got significant Medicaid money from the state – and not just from the federal government as he’d long thought – the firm stopped representing nursing homes.

Beyond that, there was a wholesale ban on the firm accepting business that had anything to do with land transfers from the state. The jury has already heard days of testimony about one such proposed land transfer with which Solis had sought Madigan’s help.

The Illinois Department of Transportation has long owned a parcel of land in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood and leased it to a nonprofit that operates it as a parking lot. In 2017, Solis asked Madigan for guidance on how the state might transfer the land to the city of Chicago so the city could sell it to a developer interested in building on the land.

Madigan recruited his friend and longtime Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain – now his co-defendant – to help, though Madigan stayed abreast of how the ultimately failed effort was progressing.

Nine months after Solis asked for the speaker’s help, he finally explicitly told Madigan that the developers would “appreciate it and sign you up” for legal work after the legislation authorizing the land transfer passed the General Assembly.

In the wiretapped call, Madigan replied, “Okay, alright, very good.” But just like the prior interactions with Solis, the former speaker testified last week that he was simply trying to move past that part of the conversation because he never intended to meet the developers or seek their business.

Madigan also didn’t vote on land transfer bills, he and other witnesses testified, and the Chinatown transfer was never included in the annual land transfer legislation that did eventually pass in 2018.

Read more: ‘There’s something fishy here, don’t you think?’: Wiretapped calls detail Madigan confidant’s confoundment over land deal

Getzendanner on Tuesday said it was a “nonstarter” when prospective clients were dealing with land transferred from the state.

But under questioning from Streicker, Getzendanner acknowledged the firm did do business with some of the other developers Solis brought to Madigan. Streicker also pointed out that in an interview with the FBI in February 2021, Getzendanner claimed he only remembered one of the five meetings Solis had arranged to meet potential clients at the law firm. After reading the FBI report about the meeting on the stand, Getzendanner said he didn’t remember saying that to the FBI.

Getzendanner also agreed with Streicker’s characterization that the former speaker “focused on client acquisition and business development” for the firm made possible by his wide network built over a career in public life. 

“Fair to say Mr. Madigan was the rainmaker for the firm?” Streicker asked.

“Yes,” Getzendanner answered.

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