Rauner on Sun-Times’ lawsuit story: “There’s no ‘there’ there”

Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner on Tuesday was dismissive of a story in that day’s Chicago Sun-Times about a lawsuit filed by a former business associate.

Christine Kirk had sued after a messy corporate divorce between Kirk and Rauner and his business partners at Chicago-based investment firm GTCR.

Rauner had recruited Kirk from a national accounting firm to run a new business-outsourcing firm, LeapSource, based in Tempe, Arizona. But he said she couldn’t make LeapSource profitable because she didn’t share his vision of what makes a “good company.”

Kirk alleged in the lawsuit that Rauner threatened her personally and through a LeapSource board member — a claim she made in a sworn deposition. That former LeapSource board member confirmed in a deposition that “threatening things … were said to her” and that he had been involved in some of those conversations. Rauner denied the allegations through a spokesman.

The lawsuit was settled in 2008 after a judge threw out most of the counts for a variety of legal defects.

Rauner, speaking at the “Women for Rauner, Coffee and Conversation” event downtown Tuesday morning dismissed the allegations raised in the Sun-Times story as “absurd.”

“There’s no story,” Rauner said. “There’s no ‘there’ there.”

Rauner noted that a judge had thrown out the lawsuit referenced in the story.

“My sense is that this is a situation of [Gov.] Pat Quinn’s researchers dredging up an old story to try to fabricate some material for another false attack ad,” Rauner said.