I have two George Ryan-related stories for
you this week. First, the irony of former Gov. Jim
Thompson’s decision to defend former Gov. George Ryan seems
pretty obvious up front, but there’s more than first meets
the eye. Thompson was the U.S. attorney who put former
Gov. Otto Kerner behind bars for corruption and was catapulted into
the Executive Mansion on his reputation as a reformer. Now the Chicago law firm Thompson heads is
defending Ryan in federal court and doing it without charge, at a
cost to the firm so far of $10 million with many weeks still ahead,
according to a recent article in Crain’s
Chicago Business. The irony doesn’t stop there, however. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s
supporters have to be cheering on Thompson and his firm’s
crack criminal-defense attorney Dan Webb as they defend Ryan. If
Ryan somehow manages to beat this rap, or winds up with just a slap
on the wrist, then U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald — the
most vigorous and relentless federal prosecutor this state has seen
since Thompson himself — may think twice about targeting
Daley and focus instead on underlings. Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s partisans are
most likely cheering on Webb and Thompson for the same reasons.
Word is that prosecutors and FBI agents have been asking questions
about the governor’s behavior during the course of this
investigation. If Ryan walks, then Blagojevich may sleep a little
easier at night. So Thompson, the former crusading Republican
prosecutor, has now become the potential savior of the Chicago
machine’s most effective manager in decades, Rich Daley. And
the current Democratic governor’s best hope for staying out
of trouble comes if Ryan — whom Blagojevich has bashed for
years — walks, courtesy of Jim Thompson, another Republican
predecessor. Did I mention that Thompson’s firm also represents
the Blagojevich campaign fund? Only in Illinois. Here’s the second story. There were two reasons then-Secretary of
State George Ryan and his chief of staff, Scott Fawell, supported
Phil Gramm’s presidential candidacy in 1996. They wanted a chance to take their statewide
organization out for a spin in preparation for the 1998
governor’s race. They didn’t back frontrunner
Bob Dole because everyone, including then-Gov. Jim Edgar, was with
the Kansas Republican and Ryan and Fawell wanted to be in charge of
their own show. Much more important, though, was the fact
that Phil Gramm had money — lots and lots of money. “I have the most reliable friend you
can have in American politics, and that is ready money,”
Gramm boasted when he announced his presidential campaign. He
wasn’t just joking, either. Gramm was loaded down with cash
from just about every special interest on the planet. So Ryan and Fawell could take their campaign
machine out for a test drive, make Gramm pay for it, and possibly
even hook themselves up with Gramm’s sweet donor list in the
process. It didn’t matter whether Gramm won or not. It was
all about them. In typical fashion, Ryan and Fawell also used
the opportunity to grab a handful of Gramm’s “ready
money” for themselves. Fawell allegedly presented a budget to
a Gramm consultant in mid-1995 that included $100,000 for
“consulting fees,” explaining to the surprised Gramm
campaign worker that this is the way things are done in Illinois.
Gramm’s campaign ended up approving about half that amount,
and the money was ultimately funneled through a company with ties
to the Ryan campaign. The feds have said that Fawell, Ryan’s
daughter, and another aide got a share of the pie, but Ryan said
last week that he was paid $11,000. Ryan wasn’t testifying
when he made that admission, however. He was holding a press
conference. During last week’s court proceedings,
Gramm said this about the consulting fees: “It’s the
difference between love and prostitution . . . you’re looking
for evidence of support, not looking to buy support . . . you
don’t pay people to be your friends.”
Ryan took that as an accusation that he was a
prostitute and let loose to reporters later: “Mr. Gramm
referred to me as a prostitute, and I really feel I absolutely have
to respond to that,” he said, claiming that he “worked
very hard” for Gramm and “earned every penny” of
his fees. “I am not a prostitute.” Now
there’s a great defense.
This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2005.
