Lou Lang’s days were numbered in the Illinois General Assembly late in October 2018 — even if he didn’t know it yet.
Key aides to then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan were well aware. With a new allegation brewing against Lang, Madigan told close confidant Michael McClain, “I don’t see how he continues.”
McClain then told Madigan’s recently ousted chief of staff, Tim Mapes, that he’d been given an “assignment” to tell Lang it was time to quit.
Recorded conversations played in federal court Thursday not only pulled back the curtain further on the end of Lang’s long legislative career but undermined Mapes’ later testimony before a federal grand jury, for which he is now on trial for perjury and attempted obstruction of justice.
When asked before the grand jury on March 31, 2021, whether McClain had “any contact” with Lang “for any purpose” between 2017 and 2019, Mapes said under oath, “I don’t know of any.”
It’s just one of many ways prosecutors have now used a monthslong wiretap of McClain’s phone to make their case that Mapes lied in 2021 and tried to block the feds’ aggressive yearslong investigation of Madigan and McClain.
They piled on further Thursday, despite an early setback in which a key call was stricken from the trial by U.S. District Judge John Kness.
Prosecutors have presented the bulk of their evidence to the jury and are expected to wrap their case Friday. Mapes’ defense attorneys, who insist he either didn’t know the answers to key questions or couldn’t remember them, will likely begin their case Monday.
Mapes is accused in the perjury count of lying on seven occasions about work done by McClain for Madigan. Mapes served for two decades as Madigan’s chief of staff, but Madigan forced Mapes to resign in June 2018 over bullying and harassment allegations.
Earlier this year, McClain was convicted with three others for conspiring to bribe Madigan. McClain also faces trial with Madigan in April in a second case, in which they are both charged with a racketeering conspiracy.
Lang testified in McClain’s earlier trial about the Nov. 8, 2018, call in which McClain told him it was time to resign.
On Thursday, the jury in Mapes’ trial heard the recording of McClain’s call to Lang.
After Lang left the stand, prosecutors played some of the conversations between McClain and Mapes about McClain’s plan to contact Lang.
“No, not yet,” McClain said.
Before jurors heard those calls, Kness told them to disregard the entirety of a call they’d heard Wednesday. In that call from Nov. 28, 2018, McClain seemed to tick through a list of several topics for Mapes that McClain had discussed with Madigan.
That recording seemed to seriously contradict one of Mapes’ alleged lies before the grand jury. When asked in 2021 whether McClain would give Mapes any insight into McClain’s interactions with Madigan, Mapes said, “No, that wouldn’t — that wouldn’t happen.”
However, Mapes attorney Andrew Porter alleged that the feds had failed to honor an agreement to redact an unspecified portion of that call. Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur acknowledged the mistake Thursday morning, and Kness ruled the jurors shouldn’t consider the recording.
Still, the judge said he considered the incident “an error as opposed to some sort of gamesmanship” by prosecutors. Porter likewise said he believed it was a “mistake.”
While that initially seemed to damage the feds’ case, prosecutors seemed to make up for it with additional recordings played Thursday. In addition to the calls in which McClain and Mapes discussed Lang, jurors heard a call from July 26, 2018, in which Mapes asked “how’s the boss?” Mapes had resigned nearly two months earlier.
McClain told Mapes, “We had a good conversation about you.”
And in another call, from Nov. 27, 2018, McClain asked Mapes when they could have a “substantive conversation” so McClain could fill him in on some of his discussions, apparently with Madigan.
