Chicago's tale of corruption has no end:The Newest Corruption Scandal

Carol Marin of The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Chicago strains the creative writing abilities of even the smartest feds.



And so on Thursday, neither his Harvard education nor his near-mythic reputation as a prosecutor's prosecutor could supply U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald with a sexy new script for the same old storyline.

Like Indiana Jones, this city's corruption saga is an endless series of sequels. And on this day it was about, well, what else? Corruption indictments, 15 of them, for city workers, contractors and developers who allegedly paid or took bribes to rig inspections, get building permits and make money the old-fashioned way, by cheating the taxpayers.

Noting one of the alleged bribes caught on tape was passed outside Oprah's West Side studios, even Fitzgerald's invocation of Chicago's global media goddess couldn't produce much sizzle.

Like an old episode from "The Twilight Zone," we've seen this show in black and white before there was color. In analog before we got high def.

But wait. Even in its sameness, there actually was something different about Thursday's press conference. It just took a few minutes to rack it into focus.

There, behind Fitzgerald, in the synchronized, somber-suited law enforcement chorus line, one player in this drama was being given a starring role, bathed in a bright, warm federal light. It was David Hoffman, Chicago's 42-year-old inspector general.

Once upon a time, Hoffman was also a fed, as an assistant U.S. attorney for seven years who did gang prosecutions. Ambitious, a bit too hip for some colleagues and, some said quietly, a bit too willing to remind others that he once clerked for the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist, Hoffman left the office in 2005 amid much fanfare.

Then, as now, corruption indictments were flying over at City Hall. Mayor Daley had just fired his first and only other inspector general, Alexander Vroustouris, who apparently never saw or stopped the Hired Truck scandal or other urgent and growing municipal embarrassments.

Daley needed to bring in a fed to prove to the feds he meant business. And Hoffman rode in.

It was never going to be easy, but even Hoffman couldn't have predicted how hard it would be. The City Council, that bastion of civic betterment, denied him subpoena power over any investigation of an alderman. He hit roadblocks in staffing his office. And, when Hoffman did hire some excellent investigators such as former FBI agent David Grossman, it still wasn't easy for them to fire city workers who considered the public trust their own bank account. The fifth floor resisted on glaring, well-publicized occasions.

Hoffman dug in. Fought back. And even when Daley created a new, parallel agency to undercut his inspector general, Hoffman refused to lie down or shut up.

All Thursday's news conference lacked was the theme music from "Band of Brothers" to make the point as Fitzgerald and FBI chief Robert Grant emphasized that this investigation was not only done in concert with Hoffman, but also was the first time ever that a City Hall inspector general was trusted with federal wiretaps.

Helllloooooo, City Hall.

This investigation comes as former Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez, the highest-ranking member of the Daley administration to be indicted, prepares for his upcoming corruption trial.

And this investigation paints a bull's-eye on the powerful 36th Ward, home of the Banks Dynasty, where the alderman, William J.P. Banks, has run the City Council's Zoning Committee with an iron hand for almost two decades. Many of those indicted have deep ties to Banks and his zoning-lawyer-lobbyist-nephew, James, neither of whom was mentioned by the feds last week.

Where is this going?

Somewhere, says Fitzgerald. Part promise, part warning, part promo for yet another sequel. And, he all but said, one other thing: Don't mess with David Hoffman.

For more on an innovator in zoning and corruption in Chicago click on this.