Source says feds showed up this am, asked everyone to leave and put brown paper on the doors. pic.twitter.com/4qJBwzoKF4
— Fran Spielman (@fspielman) November 29, 2018
Federal agents showed up unannounced at the City Hall office of Finance Committee Chairman Ed Burke, kicked everyone out and papered over the windows Thursday morning.
The exact nature of their visit was not known, but Ald. Burke (14th) has dodged dozens of federal investigations over five decades in Chicago politics.
A source told the Sun-Times the raids were in response to new allegations, and not prompted by any past controversies that have swirled around Burke. That means, for now, the investigation isn’t focused on Burke’s property-tax-appeal work for President Donald Trump, or Burke’s oversight of a city workers’ compensation fund, among other matters.
It doesn’t mean, however, that those dots won’t be connected later.
About 15 agents had arrived at City Hall about 7:30 a.m., bringing their own boxes. Some then went across the street to the underground parking garage at the Daley Center to find Burke’s car, but it wasn’t there.
Federal agents also showed up to Burke’s ward office and papered over the windows there. A group of them left about 1:10 p.m., nothing in hand, but others remained inside. By 1:30 p.m., they appeared to be wrapping up, and the brown paper had been removed.
About 1:40 p.m., the remaining agents left out the back door, with one cardboard file box, a computer and two computer monitors. Another carried up a giant wad of the brown paper that had covered the windows.
chicago.suntimes.com/news/ed-burke-fbi-federal-agents-city-hall-council/
h/t Lazlo