Facts About Pay-To-Play Preckwinkle To Help Voters Form Opinion

This is not an opinion column. These are facts.

Toni Preckwinkle is the Cook County Board president, a powerful job that doles out patronage jobs to Democrats with clout. She is the Cook County Democratic Party boss, too.

She calls herself independent and progressive.

On Sept. 4, Mayor Rahm Emanuel decided not to seek re-election. That’s when Preckwinkle decided to run for mayor. Why? “Because I can,” she said.

In or around 2014, these things happened:

* The FBI started investigating Ald. Danny Solis for doing something dirty.

* Burke’s son, Ed Burke Jr., allegedly made inappropriate sexual comments while working for the Cook County sheriff’s office.

* Ed Burke Jr. started job hunting.

* Preckwinkle had a meeting with Burke, chairman of judicial slating for the Democratic Party, to talk about hooking up his son, Ed Burke Jr., with a job.

* Preckwinkle gave Burke Jr.’s resume to a county bureaucrat, who hired the alderman’s son to a six-figure, do-nothing job.

For three years starting in 2015, Burke began donating money — a grand here, a couple grand there — to Preckwinkle’s campaign fund.

In 2016, Solis secretly started wearing a wire for the feds. He recorded conversations with Burke.

The feds wiretapped Burke’s phones. The owner of a Burger King contacted Burke’s 14th Ward aldermanic office about getting building permits for a renovation.

In January 2018, Burke held a fundraiser for Preckwinkle at his house that generated $116,0000 in campaign contributions. Those donations to Preckwinkle included $10,000 from the owner of the Burger King in Burke’s ward.

On Nov. 29, the FBI raided Burke’s government offices.

On Dec. 13, the FBI raided Burke’s offices again.

On Jan. 3, the feds charged Burke with attempted extortion related to his alleged shakedown of the Burger King owner for a donation to Preckwinkle’s campaign war chest.

On Jan. 3, Preckwinkle’s campaign spokeswoman told the Sun-Times, “Toni did not have a relationship with Ed Burke. They were on opposite side of the issues in the City Council then went their separate ways.”

A few days later, Preckwinkle admitted to getting the $10,000 in dirty money.

On Wednesday morning, the Sun-Times broke the news that Solis was an FBI mole who recorded conversations with Burke. Later that afternoon, Preckwinkle admitted to meeting with Burke about his son’s job hunt.

Chicago voters’ opinion on the whole mess is the only one that matters.

Election Day is Feb. 26.

See Also:

• Chicago Needs To Elect Bunch Of Snitches To Kill Code Of Silence
• Rahm's Podcast Isn't Practice For TV Gig; He Stinks On TV (VIDEO)
• Are You For 'Cockroaches' Or Reformers In Chicago Mayoral Race?
• Cash Connects 'Independent' Preckwinkle To 'Good Ol' Boys Club'
• Hmm, Mayor Candidate Bill Daley Doesn't Want To Dis Rahm Anymore

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the Chicagoland series on CNN.