CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago Ald. Ed Burke allegedly made anti-Semitic remarks on a wiretapped phone line, but Mayor Lori Lightfoot declined to wade in as details surfaced Wednesday.
Not that she didn’t have plenty to say, WBBM Newsradio Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports.
Lightfoot told reporters she hadn’t read a new, 227-page filing from federal prosecutors in the public corruption case against Burke, 77.
The veteran alderman allegedly said “Jews are Jews and they’ll deal with Jews to the exclusion of everybody else,” a remark prosecutors characterized as “distasteful,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The comments were part of a transcript included in the new, highly redacted document.
Lightfoot said Burke is due his day in court like anyone. He’s accused of racketeering and trying to enrich himself through his city office.
At the very least, Lightfoot said, Burke used his former position as head of the workers compensation system to cost taxpayers plenty. The city will be cleaning up that mess for years, the mayor said.
“I just think there’s no place in public life for somebody like him who used his office in a corrupt fashion,” said Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor herself.
Burke, questioned by reporters outside the City Council meeting on Wednesday, said he’ll do his talking in court.
He has previously denied wrongdoing.
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