Feds expected to call ex-state Rep. Lou Lang, play first recordings in Madigan corruption trial

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday are expected to play a first wave of nearly 200 secretly recorded conversations in the landmark corruption trial of former House Speaker Michael Madigan, including series of calls between the powerful speaker and his associates allegedly plotting the ouster of then-state Rep. Lou Lang in 2019.

Lang, a Skokie Democrat, has already testified twice for the U.S. attorney’s office about the embarrassing episode that ended his political career, which centered on an accusation of sexual harassment that Madigan believed was about to go public.

In one wiretapped call the jury is expected to hear, Madigan’s longtime confidant, Michael McClain, told Lang, “I just think it’s in your best interest to leave while you’re strong and not face all that, if you’re still a member. This is no longer me talking, I’m an agent.”

“I appreciate you leveling with me,” Lang replied, asking for a week to mull it over. “I wouldn’t do anything to damage my speaker or my caucus. He’s been very good to me.”

Lang wound up resigning days before he was to be sworn in for a new term in January 2019.

Prosecutors have played up the episode to reinforce that Madigan called the shots in Springfield and was consumed with staying in power above all else. The recordings also buttressed allegations that McClain acted as an “agent” for the famously reclusive speaker, delivering messages and completing “assignments” for his boss even after McClain’s retirement from lobbying in 2016.

Prosecutors have said they will call Lang to the stand Wednesday after the testimony of former state Rep. Scott Drury wraps up.

Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise, scheming with utility giants ComEd and AT&T to put his cronies on contracts requiring little or no work and using his public position to drum up business for his private law firm.

Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The trial got underway in earnest with opening statements this week. In his opening remarks to the jury Tuesday, McClain lawyer John Mitchell said prosecutors were trying to criminalize legal lobbying and the relationship-building at the heart of the state’s politics.

“They were so focused on Mike Madigan that they missed it,” he said. “He did not act with an attempt to bribe Mike Madigan or help him obtain bribes. … He is 100% innocent.”

Drury, a Highwood Democrat and onetime federal prosecutor, testified Tuesday about the inner workings of the Illinois General Assembly, how bills move through the House, and the rules and machinations that gave Madigan so much power.

Drury told the jury he wound up on Madigan’s bad side after refusing to take Democratic Party of Illinois money in his reelection bid in 2016 and later becoming the only member of the Democratic caucus not to vote for him to remain speaker.

Eventually, Drury said, tensions between him and Madigan rose to the point where Drury considered running for House speaker himself, and at the beginning of Drury’s third term he did not vote for Madigan to retain that office. After that, Drury said, he couldn’t remember getting a single bill passed.

But Madigan attorney Todd Pugh, during cross-examination, showed Drury evidence that he did in fact sponsor at least four bills that passed the House during his third term, and that it did not appear from the record that Madigan made any effort to block them.

Cross examination was expected to continue Wednesday.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com