The Latest Breaking News from Ed Burke

The case against the former Chicago alderperson has been pending for nearly five years.

“What’s the best evidence of defendant Burke’s intent?” asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker. “The words that came out of his mouth.”

Former President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to a pre-kindergarten class at Parkside Community Academy in South Shore, people enjoyed hot tub rides down the Chicago River, andthe Humboldt Park Puerto Rican flag at Western and Division was lit up for the holiday season for the first time…

“They ran an undercover investigation on Mr. Burke for 30 months — with the star witness being Danny Solis — and they didn’t have the decency to bring him to you,” said attorney Joseph Duffy.

‘You have heard about a pattern of unlawful activity,’ prosecutor Diane MacArthur said. ‘Standing at the center of that steady drumbeat of unlawful activity is this man, Edward Burke.’

Burke’s defense attorneys made good on their promise to call Solis to testify, forcing him out into the open nearly five years after the Chicago Sun-Times revealed his cooperation with the feds in January 2019.

City Hall bureaucracy took center stage in former Ald. Ed Burke’s corruption trial Thursday as one of the finer disputed points in the case came to a head.

Witness is pressed why he didn’t initially tell FBI agents about the former alderperson’s apparent interest in getting private business from Burger King owners.

Executive said the Klafter & Burke firm “seemed very disorganized.”

Burke tried, but failed, to leverage his political clout to strong-arm business for his tax appeals firm out of the New York business that redeveloped the Old Post Office.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall denied a request for mistrial over a remark about the ‘Chicago way of doing business’ being ‘very corrupt.’ That allowed prosecutors to proceed with recordings of Burke and witness testimony.