dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/the-donald-and-the-alderman-break-up-burke-no-longer-doing-tax-work-for-trump/

“Irreconcilable differences” have led to countless divorces. Now, the same reason is being given for the breakup of President Donald Trump and Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th).

The powerful Chicago alderman’s small law firm had worked for Trump for 12 years, persuading Cook County officials to cut the property taxes on the president’s namesake downtown skyscraper by a total of more than $14 million.

But Burke announced his breakup with Trump in letters filed last month with the Cook County courts and the Illinois State Property Tax Appeal Board. He wrote that “irreconcilable differences” have led his firm to stop representing Trump’s company and step aside in five current cases that seek refunds of millions of dollars in property taxes the president’s company has paid.

Those letters came two months after the alderman’s brother, state Rep. Dan Burke, narrowly lost a Democratic primary battle amid Hispanic voters’ outrage that the alderman was doing work for a president who wants to build a wall to thwart illegal immigration from Mexico.

In next February’s city election, Ed Burke, the city’s longest-serving alderman, is seeking another term representing his Southwest Side ward, where an overwhelming majority of the residents are Hispanic, primarily Mexican Americans.

The alderman has been criticized over his relationship with the president by former mayoral candidate Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who’s now running for Congress.

“Donald Trump began his campaign for the presidency attacking the Mexican-American community,” Garcia said in a Chicago Sun-Times interview in April. “The fact that he has been Trump’s lawyer on reducing his property taxes and has been part of the property tax system in Chicago that has affected working people more than anybody else in a regressive manner are issues that have to be taken into account. It was highly offensive to the community. Anyone who isn’t representing the community’s interests should be worried.

Clem Balanoff — a longtime Garcia ally and chief strategist for Aaron Ortiz, who defeated Dan Burke in the Democratic primary despite being outspent 3-to-1 — said Ed Burke’s move to distance himself from Trump is “one more indication of just how afraid Ed Burke is.”

Burke, 74, didn’t respond to interview requests. A representative of The Trump Organization couldn’t be reached.

The law firm of Mayer Brown has taken over five property tax appeal cases that had been filed by the alderman’s firm, Klafter & Burke, on behalf of Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. Mayer Brown attorney Patrick McNerney declined to discuss those cases, which have been languishing for as long as seven years.

Trump’s change in law firms isn’t expected to cause any additional delays, according to a spokeswoman for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, whose real estate tax division is contesting the property tax refunds that Burke had been seeking for the skyscraper’s hotel and retail spaces.