Former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan’s defense attorney Thursday did little to challenge a notorious 2018 phone call secretly recorded by the FBI in which Madigan’s alleged emissary convinced a veteran lawmaker it was time to resign.
Attorney Todd Pugh asked former state Rep. Lou Lang whether Madigan ever ordered him to do anything. Lang denied it. Later, Pugh asked whether Lang stepped down because he didn’t want to hurt the speaker or the caucus.
“That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant,” Lang said. “But I left because it was in my best interest, not in somebody else’s.”
That’s as close as Pugh came to revisiting a recording that was the first to be heard by jurors in Madigan’s racketeering conspiracy trial. Lang, who served more than 30 years in the Illinois House of Representatives, became the trial’s fourth witness Thursday.
The phone call between Lang and the man who is now Madigan’s co-defendant, Michael McClain, was one of the first bombshells in last year’s ComEd bribery trial. McClain was convicted in that trial of a lengthy scheme to bribe Madigan.
But this is now the third time Lang has testified about the call in front of a jury. He also testified about it in last year’s perjury trial of longtime Madigan chief of staff Tim Mapes.
Madigan is accused of leading a criminal enterprise designed to enhance his political power and enrich his allies and associates. McClain is accused of serving as Madigan’s agent, conveying his instructions and shielding him from liability.
The call between Lang and McClain occurred after someone threatened to come forward with an allegation against Lang late in 2018. Springfield had just endured months of #MeToo scandals.
McClain asked Madigan on Nov. 3, 2018, “When do you want me to call Lang and just lower the boom on him?”
“Sooner rather than later,” Madigan told him.
Jurors did not hear that call during Lang’s testimony. Rather, they heard the Nov. 8, 2018 call between McClain and Lang that followed, in which McClain encouraged Lang to resign and end his decades-long career in the House of Representatives.
“This is no longer me talking,” McClain told him. “I’m an agent, somebody that cares deeply about ya, who thinks that you really oughta move on.”
“So that tells me that that person is, uh, no longer interested in moving me up in leadership, right?” Lang replied.
Later, Lang told McClain he “wouldn’t do anything to damage my speaker or my caucus.”
In court Thursday, Lang told Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu that, “I understood at that time that [McClain] was a messenger for the speaker.”
He also told the prosecutor that “it was very clear to me, from this call, that my career had ended. Because the speaker was in control of my ability to move up the ranks and get the leadership that I wanted to have.”
Jurors could be seen taking notes while listening to the recording and the testimony that followed.
The balance of Lang’s testimony focused on the nuts and bolts of how the House operated and bills were moved along during Madigan’s tenure — all things Madigan controlled, according to Lang.
“If there was a decision by the speaker that the bill was not going to move out of the rules committee, it wasn’t going to move out of the rules committee,” Lang said.
Madigan oversaw the movement of bills from the House Committee on Rules, where it would then be moved to a special committee overseen by a chairperson. Madigan, Lang said, was in control over which Democratic members would be placed on committees and appointed to chair them.
Sometimes, a committee chair could create a subcommittee that bills would be assigned to for further work.
“Oftentimes, that bill would never be heard from again,” Lang said.
Pugh questioned whether the powers afforded to Madigan were unique to the speaker alone.
In many ways, Lang said they were not: Both the Democrats and the Republicans, the minority party for much of his time in the House, got equal numbers of leadership and the same funding by the state to support them.
Lang agreed with Pugh that the structure of how a bill was passed was mandated by the constitution and was conducted transparently and in public.
Much of Madigan’s power came from his ability to fundraise for himself and for other Democrats, Lang said.
Lang was also asked by Pugh about Madigan’s reputation as a hard worker for the Democratic caucus.
“I don’t know anybody in any career that had a stronger work ethic than Mike Madigan,” Lang responded.
But Madigan did not control Lang either, he testified.
“Mike Madigan never instructed me how to vote on any bill at any time.”