Chicago Alderman and tax attorney to Donald Trump, Ed Burke, has been charged with one count of attempted extortion for allegedly trying to use his political position to solicit business for his private law firm. His offices were raided by the FBI recently. Chicago Sun Times:
Burke was dropped by a member of his security detail at his lawyer’s office late Thursday morning but after spending time inside exited and took a cab to the FBI’s Chicago headquarters on the West Side.
It has been five weeks since the FBI’s high-profile raid on Burke’s City Hall and ward offices. Federal agents showed up unannounced at City Hall the morning of Nov. 29, kicked everyone out and papered over the windows.
They spent about seven hours there, leaving via a back staircase to avoid waiting reporters.
Ever since, speculation has been rampant about a likely end to Burke’s nearly 50-year tenure on the City Council, whether through federal charges, an election loss, or both.
Burke has been targeted for political defeat in part because he has done property tax appeal work for President Donald Trump. Some wondered after the raid whether he would even stay in the race.
Burke did tax work for the Trump Organization for twelve years and publicly severed that relationship six months ago. Chicago Sun Times June 9, 2018
The powerful Chicago alderman’s small law firm had worked for Trump for 12 years, persuading Cook County officials to cut the property taxes on the president’s namesake downtown skyscraper by a total of more than $14 million.
But Burke announced his breakup with Trump in letters filed last month with the Cook County courts and the Illinois State Property Tax Appeal Board. He wrote that “irreconcilable differences” have led his firm to stop representing Trump’s company and step aside in five current cases that seek refunds of millions of dollars in property taxes the president’s company has paid.
Those letters came two months after the alderman’s brother, state Rep. Dan Burke, narrowly lost a Democratic primary battle amid Hispanic voters’ outrage that the alderman was doing work for a president who wants to build a wall to thwart illegal immigration from Mexico.
Apparently it’s true, everything Trump touches, dies. Interesting pattern, how Trump’s attorneys end up getting raided by the FBI.
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[cross-posted to PolitiZoom]
