As the corruption trial of former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke approaches, a federal court has agreed that former President Donald Trump’s name should be banished from the proceedings.
The once-all-powerful 14th Ward alderman is scheduled to stand trial Nov. 6 and is facing 14 corruption charges. Federal prosecutors argue that he used his elected position to strong-arm people wanting to do business with the city into hiring his private law firm.
Burke retired from office earlier this year
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after serving in the City Council for a record 54 years. Federal prosecutors have signaled that they will present undercover recordings of Burke discussing, among other things, his work for Trump’s companies.Burke did a lot of talking on the tapes that were secretly recorded during the yearslong federal investigation. Prosecutors plan to play those tapes to help make their case, but all that talking won’t include any mention of Trump.
No mention of the former president? Now, we’re talking!
Burke has reportedly bragged about obtaining massive property tax breaks for Trump to impress potential clients.
In the run-up to the trial, Burke’s lawyers argued that mentioning Trump’s name would be unfair because, they said, the former president is “despised by a significant percentage of the population,” the Tribune reported.
“Mr. Burke’s legal work for (Trump) could cause many jurors to have an unfavorable impression of Mr. Burke and could create significant bias against him,” the lawyers wrote in a motion earlier this month. Making the Burke-Trump association is “fraught with the likelihood of unfair prejudice.”
At a pretrial hearing last week, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall wondered how prosecutors planned to remove Trump’s name, the Tribune reported. “How do you anonymize a reference to Trump? I mean, what are you going to say?” Kendall asked.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker replied that prosecutors will edit the clip, so that instead of Trump’s name, “there will be silence.”
Beautiful, sweet silence.
Burke, longtime chair of the City Council’s Finance Committee, was, by many reckonings, the most powerful alderman in Chicago history. That is, until he was charged in May 2019 with racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity. Burke is accused of leveraging his government role to gain lucrative business for his property tax law firm.
Burke has bragged about getting tax breaks for Trump Tower in downtown Chicago and has won more than $14 million in tax breaks for Trump over a dozen years, the Chicago Sun-Times has reported.
Since Trump got into politics, his name has been incessantly uttered by reporters, cable TV talking heads, and politicians on the left and right, in the center and beyond. The news media will cover Burke’s trial wall to wall. Trump’s name will be absent from that coverage, and that is a delight to hear.
Burke’s attorneys are right about one thing. No city in the world abhors Donald J. Trump more than Chicago, where he is persona non grata. The Trump-Burke combine milked Chicago taxpayers for millions, yet Trump pounced on every opportunity to denigrate our city.
For instance, in October 2019, Trump made his first visit as president to Chicago — after more than 2 1/2 years in office. He proceeded to deliver a speech to a conference of police chiefs in which he insulted the city left and right.
Trump “called the values of Chicago’s police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, who had pointedly skipped the president’s address, a ‘disgrace,'” The New York Times reported at the time. “He criticized the city’s open stance toward immigrants. He said Chicago was notorious around the globe for its violence.”
“It’s embarrassing to us as a nation,” Trump was quoted as saying. “All over the world, they’re talking about Chicago.”
At a White House roundtable the following July, Trump noted that Chicago’s struggle with gun violence and compared the city to war-torn Afghanistan.
“(It’s) worse than Afghanistan. (It’s) worse than any war zone we’re in by a lot,” Trump said. “It makes (Afghanistan) look like a tame place by comparison.”
Trump has attacked Chicago for serving as a sanctuary city and has personally maligned our mayor, police superintendent and the city’s liberal politics. It all comes from a man who now faces 91 felony counts in four criminal cases in Washington, New York, Florida and Georgia.
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Now, at least, during Burke’s trial, enjoy a Trump-free zone.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Monday. Write to her at [email protected].
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