After a legislative win in the spring, Mayor Lori Lightfoot now wants to hear from gambling operators and real estate developers looking to roll the dice on a first-ever Chicago casino.
President Donald Trump will make his case for another four years in the White House tonight, a finale to this week’s Republican National Convention, as a deadly pandemic ebbs and flows in this country and communities convulse over racial injustice.
Clearly anticipating he’ll be the target, Democratic presidential Joe Biden made the rounds on cable news shows today. On MSNBC, Biden blasted Trump’s response to COVID-19 and hinted the president should have traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the days since a white police officer on Sunday shot a Black man several times in the back, prompting deadly unrest in the community just 60 miles north of Chicago.
As legal questions about the president’s personal businesses and finances continue, the Tribune’s David Heinzmann offers: “New York’s attorney general is trying to answer one of the most perplexing questions surrounding the troubled financing of the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago: whether President Donald Trump failed to pay taxes on a $100 million loan deal related to the project.”
The court filing surfaced as the Republican National Convention got underway on Monday and Trump enters the final stretch of his reelection bid. The timing wasn’t lost on Trump family members and others who maintain the New York’s AG, a Democrat, is politically motivated.
And today on the (alleged) public corruption front: “A top aide to Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson been charged with lying to the FBI about whether he passed secret bid information about a massive $1 billion custodial contract to a lobbyist working for one of the bidders,” the Tribune’s Jason Meisner reports.
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot puts out request to gambling operators for possible Chicago casino
The Tribune’s John Byrne writes: “Lightfoot on Thursday took the next step in the push for a Chicago casino, putting out a request for gambling operators and real estate developers to submit plans about how they would build and run what is expected to be a gigantic betting parlor in the city.
The request for information from the operators was the expected next step after Springfield lawmakers came through with the changes to the casino tax structure the mayor wanted to the legislation that allowed a gambling hall in the city.
The request for information asks applicants to talk about their thoughts on operating a temporary casino while a permanent one is under construction, and asks them to weigh in on what factors the city should prioritize for the location of the casino, including how many acres of land will be required. Read the full story here.
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High-ranking Chicago Public Schools official charged with lying to FBI in contract probe
Pedro Soto, who has served as CPS CEO Janice Jackson’s chief of staff since 2018, was charged in a criminal information made public today with one count of lying to the FBI during an interview about whether he passed secret bid information regarding a massive $1 billion custodial contract to a lobbyist working for one of the bidders, the Tribune’s Jason Meisner writes. Read the full story here.
Insight: Defendants charged in an information as opposed to an indictment typically intend to plead guilty.
The charges lift the lid on yet another federal investigation into fraud at CPS: Meisner also writes, “The probe involving Soto began to unfold just months after the school district’s then-CEO, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, was charged in a scheme to collect kickbacks in exchange for steering more than $20 million in contracts to SUPES Academy, an education consulting firm where she had previously worked.”
Kim Foxx’s challenger is taking heat over decades-old high-profile wrongful conviction case
Tribune columnist Eric Zorn says Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has taken plenty of heat over the Jussie Smollett case. But Zorn writes: ‘Patrick O’Brien, Foxx’s Republican challenger in the November election, handled the horrific and troubling case of four teenagers falsely accused of the October 1986 rape and murder of Rush University medical student Lori Roscetti.
“O’Brien, then a supervisor in the felony review unit under Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley, prosecuted the case, which resulted in life sentences for three of the defendants.” Read the full column here.
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Expect Trump to unload on Biden at tonight’s Republican National Convention finale
The president will make the case for a second term tonight to a country in crisis. Beyond the pandemic, which has ravaged lives across the nation, the country also is facing a racial reckoning and a massive hurricane slamming the Gulf Coast.
Trump’s expected to take the baton from Vice President Mike Pence, who last night invoked the unrest in Kenosha — triggered by a white police officer shooting a Black man in the back — and suggested Biden would back policies that would see crime rise. The AP offers this speech preview.
As the Tribune’s Rick Pearson wrote, Pence contended in his address that Biden considers America to be “systemically racist and that law enforcement in America has and I quote, ‘an implicit bias’ against minorities,” while wanting to defund police, something the former vice president has denied.
“The hard truth is, you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Pence said. “Under President Trump, we will always stand with those who stand on the Thin Blue Line, and we’re not going to defund the police — not now, not ever.”
Biden made the rounds on cable news shows today, firing back at Pence’s criticism while offering a preemptive strike to Trump’s expected attack, saying on MSNBC: “The problem we have right now is we’re in Donald Trump’s America.”
Biden also said if he were president he would have traveled to Kenosha — a not-so-subtle dig at Trump, who has not discussed the incident. Meantime, Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, delivered a stinging assessment of Trump’s response to COVID-19 during an afternoon address. Read more here.
It’s all a windup to tonight’s Republican convention finale: Trump’s prime-time address on the White House South Lawn tonight, a setting that has raised eyebrows among critics who call it ethically questionable to be using the People’s House for campaign purposes. While Trump has centered his recent campaign speech on anarchists that he depicts overrunning city streets, aides signaled that tonight’s remarks will not be as dark as his infamous “American carnage” inaugural address. Read the full AP story here.
For a list of tonight’s scheduled speakers, and how to watch the Republican National Convention, click here.
Private Wisconsin college cancels Pence commencement speech, citing Kenosha unrest — though many students objected to visit: Read the Associated Press story here.
President Trump’s towering business problems?
“According to a recent court filing in New York from the state’s attorney general, Trump’s lender on a high-interest $150 million loan on his Chicago Trump Tower property, Fortress Credit Corp., made a 2012 deal to accept a $48 million payoff — in essence, forgiving more than $102 million in debt. And, as such, whether the $100-plus million should have in turn be declared as taxable income,” the Tribune’s David Heinzmann reports.
“New York Attorney General Letitia James included the allegation in the Monday filing as she seeks to compel the Trump Organization, and the president’s son Eric to provide records and testimony regarding the organization’s tax maneuvering on Chicago and three other properties,” Heinzmann writes.
Reminder, courtesy of the Washington Post: “Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. (D) is separately looking into payoffs made in 2016 to women who alleged they had affairs with Trump — and Vance’s recent filings suggest that his probe may have expanded to cover other financial dealings at the company”
Democratic U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg, who has had a front-row seat to battles over access to Trump’s tax and business records from his perch on both the House Oversight and Intelligence committees, said the New York allegations raise a number of concerns, including the message it sends to the public.
“(I)f the president of the United States is not paying taxes on forgiven debt, the average taxpayer may be asking, ‘Why should I?'”
But his biggest concern is the counterintelligence issues raised by the allegations.
“The moment I saw this particular issue, it raised in my mind: Who knows the truth of this particular transaction? Does one of our foreign adversaries? Because if they do, and you and I do not, they can use that as leverage. That’s what the Russians call kompromat,” Krishnamoorthi said. “There’s always that lurking suspicion about who is actually behind this, and what did they get in return for the forgiveness? They don’t do this as charity … and that further raises the question of what do Donald Trump and the Trump Organization owe to these people?” Read the full story here.
Without a state lifeline, Exelon says it will close two area nuclear plants: Crain’s
From Crain’s: “Exelon announced it’s closing two of the five nuclear stations that serve the Chicago area.”
Data points on tax, job losses in the state: Per Steve Daniels’ piece in Crain’s, “The two plants employ more than 1,500 and pay more than $63 million in local taxes, the company said.” Read the full story here.
Perspective: Apparently trying to lean on Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the company said, “The two plants supply 30 percent of Illinois’ carbon-free energy and are essential to meeting the state’s goal to achieve 100 percent clean energy.”
Daniels notes in his piece: “Pritzker just last Friday attempted to restart discussions around comprehensive energy legislation that had been derailed with the July admissions by Exelon-owned Commonwealth Edison of paying off friends and allies of House Speaker Michael Madigan over the year in order to win favorable legislation.”
Elected leaders say they’re rolling up their sleeves to figure out a way to keep the power plants operating.
Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat, said he will look into legislative options requiring power plants be put up for sale before they can be mothballed.
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“Independent market monitors believe these plants can be profitable. I intend to look into legislative options including requiring these plants be put up for sale before they can be shuttered. We owe it to these workers and communities to see if someone else can successfully run these assets.”
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