Jan Schakowsky Mentored Chicago Mob Linked Alexi Giannoulias

Flashback to the Chicago Reader December 2008:

In mid-November, Alexi Giannoulias held a Sunday-morning news conference at Flashpoint Academy, a digital-arts school in the Loop, to announce that he was being endorsed for the U.S. Senate by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. It wasn't a surprising development—Schakowsky has been a mentor and a key ally to Giannoulias since his political debut in 2006, when he ran successfully for state treasurer—but the event was choreographed as if it were big news. Campaign workers greeted people in the lobby and directed them to the elevators a few steps away; others waited to catch them as they stepped off the elevators on the fifth floor. Dozens of chairs were set up in the room where the announcement was to be made, and a video camera was ready to capture it for YouTube.

By a few minutes past 11:30, the scheduled start time, about 20 of Giannoulias's supporters had assembled, including the campaign staffers and his mother. But the only media who'd shown up were me and a couple cameramen from local TV stations.

In strode a smiling Schakowsky and Cook County commissioner Larry Suffredin, followed by Giannoulias, a six-two, 33-year-old former basketball player and banking exec.

Larry Suffredin is another Chicago politician with ties to Chicago Mob associate Fred Barbara of domestic terrorist fame. Did Alexi Giannoulias suggest Jan Schakowsky rent office space from Chicago mobster Michael "Jaws" Giorango?