I'm checking in with the White House to see if there are any updates to President Donald Trump's Sunday tweet about disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. But closer to home, DePaul University student David Krupa has won an early victory in his bid to challenge an incumbent alderman in powerful House Speaker Mike Madigan's Southwest Side ward. And as we mark the anniversary of serial killer John Wayne Gacy's arrest, we'll take a look at his work as a small-time political operative … and that picture he took with then-first lady Rosalynn Carter, just months before his arrest. |
 President Donald Trump's sufficiently vague tweet cheering and steering followers to check out former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich's interview on Fox News — again to make the case that her husband and Illinois' ex-governor was wrongly imprisoned — leaves so many questions. I asked the White House whether Trump is eyeing a commutation, but so far there's still no answer on that or other questions. But Sunday's Twitter comment suggests Trump continues to consider Rod Blagojevich, a onetime contestant on the president's old reality show "Celebrity Apprentice": "Required television watching is last weeks @marthamaccallum interview with the wonderful wife of Rod Blagojevich and the @trish_regan interview with a Jerome Corsi. If that doesn't tell you something about what has been going on in our Country, nothing will. Very sad!" Could it be that the show on Fox, the president's go-to news source, struck a chord? Or, perhaps, it's the president's way of taking another whack at the FBI and the Department of Justice as he deals with being the subject of multiple federal probes? "If we're going to assume there is an underlying defense strategy here, that this is part of a coherent approach to his own legal troubles — then it could be to raise doubts, to question the legitimacy … of the FBI and the Department of Justice … and I can show you I'm being nonpartisan here because I'm being sympathetic to a former Democratic governor," says UCLA law professor Jon Michaels, an expert in constitutional law and presidential powers. And it can sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of the American public, he said. For Patti Blagojevich, it's a repeat performance, as she's made several direct appeals to the president on her husband's behalf. But this one was artful. As the Tribune's Rick Pearson points out: "In the interview, which aired Friday night, Patti Blagojevich attempted to liken a new probe into questionable spending on Trump's 2017 inauguration to what she thought were injustices in an unrelated criminal matter — namely her husband's conviction on federal corruption charges over attempting to extort campaign contributions in exchange for favorable legislation — including a children's hospital." Adds UCLA's Michaels: "This has been reported before, but the president has been seen as sympathetic to the reasoning and programming and editorial content of Fox News. It's his chicken soup. So it shouldn't be a surprise that it's an effective strategy to do an interview on Fox News." Blago today: He's 61 and has served six years of a 14-year prison sentence in Colorado. |   |
 David Krupa, the DePaul University freshman trying to unseat Chicago's 13th Ward alderman will be on the Feb. 26 ballot after all. The 19-year-old was facing a challenge to his nominating petitions by incumbent Ald. Marty Quinn, and if he lost he could have been bounced from the ballot. But Quinn — who operates with the blessing of Madigan — withdrew the controversial challenge over the weekend, clearing the way for Krupa to run in the February election. The controversy: Quinn challenged the validity of Krupa's signatures — a strategy employed by all manner of candidates to get an opponent booted off the ballot. To prove the point, operatives "walked door to door in the 13th Ward and turned in 2,796 affidavits from residents asking that their signatures for Krupa be revoked," Tribune columnist John Kass reported. The problem: Krupa only turned in 1,700 signatures. Krupa's team is questioning the process, and Quinn didn't address the issue when asked about it. Read Tribune columnist John Kass' latest take on it all here. Vallas drops McCarthy challenge: Ex-police Superintendent Garry McCarthy's path to appear on the mayoral ballot was cleared Monday when onetime Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas dropped his objections to the former top cop's nominating petition signatures. Read John Byrne's story here. | |
 It was 40 years ago this month that authorities uncovered Gacy's grisly crimes — and in doing so they learned about his work in the local Democratic Party. As investigators went through his west suburban home — many of the bodies were found in the residence's crawl space — they came across a business card showing he was a precinct captain for the Norwood Park Township Democratic Party. Gacy even had a White House connection at the time. From the Tribune archives: Then-first lady Rosalynn Carter posed for a picture with Gacy in May 1978, about seven months before police started digging up bodies buried under his house. The first lady was in Chicago to celebrate Polish Constitution Day. In the photograph, Gacy wore an "S" pin, apparently issued by the Secret Service to identify those cleared to be on the reviewing stand. At the time, Gacy was almost done with his killing spree. Later, lawyers for Gacy included Carter on the list of more than 150 potential defense witnesses at his trial. The entry read, "Mrs. James Carter, White House, Washington, D.C." But she was never called to testify at Gacy's trial. He was convicted of the murders of 33 young men and boys, and was executed. Check out the Tribune's anniversary coverage here as well as a somber and sad look at the list of victims and timeline here and here. | |
 Mayor Rahm Emanuel's appointment of Austan Goolsbee, the prominent economist who like Emanuel served in the Obama White House, to that long-vacant seat on the Chicago Board of Education gets the mind reeling. Nothing against the revered Goolsbee, but the seat's been cold for so long, why didn't the outgoing mayor just let his successor make that decision? Read Juan Perez Jr.'s piece here in the Tribune on Goolsbee, an intellectual and political insider. I went digging around to learn more about him and came across this great piece by Carol Felsenthal of Chicago Magazine, who talked to Goolsbee about why he seemed to keep popping up on TV and radio shows hosted by conservative Sean Hannity. The interview with Goolsbee was in 2013, several years before Donald Trump was elected to office and Hannity became a White House confidant. But it offers some insight on the University of Chicago professor's willingness to play (hard) ball, and even his ability to be chummy with the well-known conservative. "If Democrats don't go on Fox News, it doesn't mean that people stop watching," he said at the time, adding: "They say so many outrageous things. Somebody has to respond and offer a more reasonable version to their conspiracy theories and really extreme views. … I'm from Chicago (Born in Waco, Texas; reared in Whittier, Calif.). I don't mind playing smashmouth football; I'm not afraid to take a punch. Maybe it's because I teach (in) Chicago, where there are very smart conservatives and libertarians." | |
 Over a three-day period in early August, dozens of people were shot in Chicago. More than a dozen were killed. Almost all remain unsolved. But the Tribune's William Lee and Jeremy Gorner took a look at the few arrests that have been made — and the painfully slow wheels of justice. Read here. A pickpocket alert: November saw the highest number of thefts on the CTA in 15 years. Read here. An Indiana wine retailer is one step closer to overturning a Prohibition-era Illinois law and selling — and shipping — wine directly to consumers in Illinois. Read Robert Channick's report in the Tribune about how this could reflect a potential shift in judicial sentiment away from strict state control of alcohol sales. Presidential aspirations?: Pete Buttigieg, South Bend's openly gay mayor, won't seek a third term, fueling 2020 speculation. Read here. | |
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