John Lausch info, it cane out ge’s leaving the DOJ and replaced with Hur. Durbin and Duckworth eventually asked Biden to keep him. Article
Editorial: President Biden: Keep our U.S. Attorney John Lausch
Feb 09, 2021 at 11:15 am
President Joe Biden’s Justice Department dismissed U.S. attorneys across the country appointed by former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, and Northern District of Illinois U.S. Attorney John Lausch appears to be out. That would be a terrible decision by Biden.
Lausch has been leading several wide-ranging corruption investigations involvingComEd and numerous top Democrats.
If Lausch goes, our two U.S. senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, either didn’t see it coming or didn’t do enough to stop it. They released a statement Tuesday morning expressing their “disappointment” with the decision. They should be working to reverse it immediately, not shrugging their shoulders with a lame news release.
Durbin has a pipeline to Biden directly through his seniority in the Senate and his new position heading the Judiciary Committee. So does Duckworth, who was considered last summer as a possible vice presidential running mate to Biden. What a misstep on their part.
This is bad news for Illinois — and great news to corrupt politicians who’ve been on Lausch’s radar.
And what a coincidence that the politicians indicted, charged or under investigation so far happen to be mostly Democrats. Dismissing Lauschwill look like a Biden-Durbin-Duckworth favor to their corrupt Democrat pals.
The indictments and charges so far have included Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, 14th,and his aide, Peter Andrews; Commonwealth Edison and several of its higher-ups with ties to Michael Madigan; former Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski and his aide, Pat Doherty; Crestwood Mayor Lou Presta; the late Sen. Martin Sandoval; former Rep. Luis Arroyo; Sen. Tom Cullerton; former labor leader John Coli; former Sen. Terry Link; and that’s not even a full list.
How interesting they’re all affiliated with the Democratic Party, we have a Democratic president and two Democratic senators, and suddenly the prosecutor handling the corruption probe is on the verge of being cut loose. How interesting that so far, the only U.S. attorneys invited to stay on in the Biden administration are the ones involved in “sensitive” investigations aimed at former President Donald Trump, CNN reports.
No other law enforcement official is doing the corruption work here in Illinois, not Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, not Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, or other county state’s attorneys, and not police or sheriffs’ departments, which are ill-equipped for high-profile corruption cases. Lausch is all we have.
Lausch also has been helping Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago with violent crime. The effort known as Operation Legend, which fanned across several U.S. cities to battle increases in crime, was credited as of last fall with 262 charges of firearm offenses in the Northern District, a number 33% higher than 2018 and 48% higher than 2017, according to the Trump Justice Department.
Since late July, the coordination of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies has been targeting gun crimes and gun trafficking, drug trafficking, carjacking, straw purchasing and also last fall, a major drug sale operation on the West Side that netted the arrests of more than 25 people who allegedly used a special phone line to arrange sales and drops. Gangs and drugs have been a target of Lausch’s office, not just pinstriped corruption involving elected officials.
It will be a sad day for Illinois if Lausch goes. He should stay, and our senators should have made sure that happened.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-john-lausch-fired-durbin-duckworth-20210209-s7uwb5hcencyrnotjk772d27j4-story.html