The One Remaining Ryan Story Has No Drama.

A number of liberals who fondly want remember George Ryan as the kind of conservative Republican they love: one who switched his views after election to become anti-death penalty, pro-choice, pro-O’Hare expansion snout-snuffling regular pol rather than the corrupt felon he is, seem to hold out hope that the juror-foreman case will cause a mis-trial. The foreman did not note on her application that she was involved in a litigious divorce, tried to have her ex-husband placed under protective custody. No lawyer or ex-judge I talked to takes this seriously. The idea that the trial is not yet over is un-founded. Legal precedent is heavily on the side of not overturning jury verdicts without enormous material errors in a trail. Ergo: Ryan can get ready to try out his stripes.

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The Unanswered Question: What’s Thompson Get Out of This?

I must say that if we had a good investigative press—or even a reasonably curious one—we would be deluged with questions concerning the multi-million-dollar pro-bono defense of George Ryan by Jim Thompson and Winston & Strawn. Thompson put his ace rain-maker, Dan Webb on the case and he’s been working virtually full-time for at least a year—without remuneration. Which means that the partners have had their pay trimmed proportionately. My question is: what’s Thompson’s interest in all this. Oh, I don’t mean the fact that he’s a good friend of George’s. I mean: what does George have on Thompson to have placed at his disposal the massive resources of a major law-firm, free?

Any good government idea that Jim Thompson is an idealist and wishes to pursue the unblemished nuances of the law ended during Big Jim’s 4-term reign as governor when he followed the lifestyle of Suleiman the Magnificent, building that taxpayer-funded god-awful glass menagerie called The Thompson Center, supporting each and every item of the liberal Democratic agenda, promising no new taxes and cynically reneging after election ending up with the strange court decision rendered by Seymour Simon’s son that ended any possibility of a recount on the election he narrowly won from Adlai Stevenson III, wherein even Jane Byrne told me that in the 5,000-vote margin, the election could easily have been stolen. Further, any view that Thompson is ethically unchallengeable must have died with the humiliating laxity he displayed as chief of the audit committee at Hollinger where he signed off on every Conrad Black wish, enjoying hugely as he did the schmoozing of Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle, his board-mates.

The latest episode with the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois testifying for George Ryan without notifying anyone that he owes a debt to Winston & Strawn was ignored by everybody except the Tribune’s John Kass. Frankly, Chicago’s media has performed much better on other things than it has on this. Ladies and gentlemen of the so-called independent media, this has looked like a massive impropriety for a long time. Unless you have been suffocated by the charm of Big Jimbo, if there isn’t an answer made to this million-dollar-plus donation of corporate in kind support Mother Teresa-like by Jim for George, there ought at least to be some recitation of it in the public prints. At the least there ought to be some estimate on how much Dan Webb would have charged plus the auxiliary legal services. Good God, questions should be asked, don’t you think?

Why Jim Thompson’s Law Firm is Not Billing George Ryan for Its Services

I must confess I was stumped this morning when I read in the Sun-Times that Big Jim Thompson who has never met a fat retainer he disliked is allowing his ace partner Dan Webb to defend George Ryan pro-bono with the meter running up to $10 million so far. He who would charge the late Mother Teresa is doing this out of the milky kindness of his heart for George? I exhausted the possibilities but now comes along Rich Miller in his newsletter Capitol Fax to opine that (a) Mayor Daley’s people are cheering along Thompson (which is not bad for business) and (b) believe that if Ryan is acquitted or escapes with a mild sentence, they Daleys can apply the same legal techniques. Makes sense. All of which proves the old adage which asks the question “what do lawyers and sperm have in common?” Answer: Each has a one-in-a-million chance of becoming a human being.”

The George Ryan Trial: The Improbable Making of a Saint

Those of us who went to Catholic grade school in the baleful days of pre-Vatican II recall the nuns drilling into our heads that it takes three bona-fide miracles to make a saint, even before beatification ceremonies are initiated in the Vatican. I have long felt that the man whose biography I wrote, Msgr. Ignatius McDermott, the tough-talking apostle to the addicted who dealt with the unfortunates of our society in skid row and who built a haven for them at Haymarket Center qualifies. Herewith is a few irreverent jottings about miracles that I am sure the venerable monsignor, who died at the end of 2004 at age 95, prayed for.

Without doubt, miracle number one is the White Sox winning the World Series. Number two would be the Chicago Bears going to the Superbowl. Right now they’re leading the pack. Number three would be an instance that I would hate to see: the acquittal of former Republican governor George Ryan. Ryan was Father McDermott’s favorite. For many reasons, even before his indictment, he was not mine. I have never seen in 50 years of politics a more gruff, arrogant, insensitive, crass, bullying clod. Indeed for years I tried to tell Father Mac this. It made no impression. Finally, one day when we were together I told him that his fondness for the Kankakee baron was seriously misplaced. The next day when I arrived at Haymarket, Father Mac’s secretary told me, “Father told me he couldn’t sleep last night because of what you told him.” I said good, he finally got to appreciate what a bounder George Ryan is.

“Not exactly,” she said. “He thinks there’s something wrong with you.””

With that I abandoned any thought of changing the mind of a ninety year old. Without prejudicing the case involving 22 counts against Ryan, let me give you a glimpse into him. Fifteen years ago when Ryan was secretary of state, he went as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in New Orleans. It so happened that I flew down in a trim Lear jet with the Quaker c.e.o. who was also a delegate and chairman of the state Republican finance committee.

At convention’s end, Ryan, dead cigar in his mouth came up to my boss and grunted, “Bill, can I bum a ride home to Illinois in your plane?”

This particular c.e.o., new to politics and newer still to Ryan, was pathetically eager to please. Yes, he said, of course, George.

Ryan grunted again. “Bill, can my wife ride along, too?”

Of course.

“I have a security guard. Can he come, too?

Uh, yes.

“We have lot of luggage. So does my body guard. Can we bring it all?”

Uh, yes, I guess so."

When we were loaded in the plane—and I mean loaded, with Ryan, his wife, the body guard and tons of baggage, hat boxes and souvenirs stacked on my lap, he leaned over and said:

“Bill, you mind dropping us off in Kankakee?”

This Man Webb

It is revelatory that Dan Webb, chief defense counsel for George Ryan, is planning to use as partial defense the pressuring that the feds have applied to Scott Fawell to dump a load of incriminating evidence against Ryan. Indeed, Fawell himself testified yesterday that the feds “have my head in a vise.” To hear Webb, who has the boy-lawyer look of an under-aged cabbage patch doll, scream about Patrick Fitzgerald one would imagine that pressure against such witnesses have never been applied before. Oh?

Not only has it been regular treatment for prosecutors, it was perfected by Webb’s old boss Jim Thompson and brought to a high form of art by Webb as Thompson’s willing assistant. The book “The Thompson Indictment” by Jan Bone [Public Interest Press: 1978] describes the fearsome squeeze applied by Webb to Alderman Paul Wigoda. Webb had a perfect conviction rate in 28 cases, many involving political and police corruption.

Bone: “…Webb’s cases involved flagrantly excessive use of immunized witnesses even by the Thompson office standard—more than 100 by conservative estimate; and the directly related deduction that this promiscuous use of highly questionable legal tool could not help but relieve Webb of at least some of the prosecutor’s rightful burden or proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

I think what gets me is the horror that defense attorneys reserve against prosecutors when earlier these same defense attorneys have utilized the same weapon. This reflects the common idea that courtroom law practice is at bottom a game.

This is the same Webb who was appointed U.S. Attorney by Ronald Reagan, who used it to gain fame--and, after leaving federal employ, a munificent life as a highly paid lawyer, all attributable to his appointment by Reagan, Webb later volunteered while in private practice to be a special prosecuting counsel on Iran Contra, and who delightedly cross-examined ex-president Reagan when he was coming down with Alzheimer’s, applying hot light tactics which caused a jury to gasp and who basked in the favor of the liberal media for his work in humiliating the nation’s 40th president.. Which is why, were he to unaccountably fall into the shark tank at the Shedd Aquarium, Webb would emerge unscathed due to the sharks’ professional courtesy for one of their profession.