The Chicago Sun Times has traditionally been the newspaper
of the left in town. These days it’s
hard to find any rag that doesn’t shill for Obama. But The Sun Times is going out on a limb to criticize Obama.
Staff reporter Dan Mihalopoulos wrote a story today about
David Axelrod, Obama’s PR manager who left the White House last year to work
full time on the campaign.
It seems that Axelrod’s old PR firm, the one that he founded,
is knee-deep in Chicago business.
Of course, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was Chief of Staff at the same
time Axelrod worked in the White House.
Hmmm.
And although Axelrod left the PR firm to work in Washington,
he’s still drawing $200K a year (Does that make him a 1%-er?) from the firm and
his new firm is on the same floor in the same building as the old.
Did I mention that he still has an office in the old firm?
Did I mention that two of the projects Axelrod’s old firm is
working on are very lucrative, long-term programs – renovating Wrigley Field
with public money and an infrastructure investment scheme using private funds.
But all the answers are lined up to assure us that
everything is legit. [Of course they
are. Chicago politics is always clean.]
Here’s a sample of the official explanations:
- Axelrod says he had no role in landing those contracts and isn’t involved in the work ASGK is doing for Citibank…or for the Cubs.
- Axelrod says he didn’t even know Citibank was an ASGK client until a reporter told him.
- Axelrod says the terms of his deal with ASGK “are fixed and unaffected by these deals” with Citibank and the Cubs.
- “If you think hiring Axelrod’s old firm will get you special access or privileges, you are sorely mistaken,” says spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton. “No person or company has an inside track into City Hall.”
- The firm’s executives don’t register as lobbyists because they say they don’t ever directly lobby — contacting public officials on behalf of their clients. Rather, they say they help clients get their stories out in other ways — with “media relations, message development, advertising, social media and constituency relations.”
- Another Axelrod-founded firm — AKPD Media and Messaging — recently produced ads critical of the Chicago Teachers Union, which is embroiled in a contract dispute with Emanuel.
- AKPD oversaw Emanuel’s ad blitz during his mayoral campaign, and the firm is a paid consultant to his political committee, state records show.
- “I rent space in my old offices, but I work full-time out of Obama headquarters these days,” Axelrod says.
- Ald. Will Burns (4th) — who voted for the trust — works for ASGK. Its website lists him as a managing partner. Burns says he doesn’t work on the Citibank account and had been unaware that Citibank is an ASGK client.
Absolutely the best photo depicting the matter is this one:
But you’ve got to trust the Chicago Machine. There’s nothing to see here. Really.
Especially in an election year.
A tip of the hat to Mr. Mihalopoulos for his political
courage.
David Axelrod: No role in firm’s deals
BY DAN MIHALOPOULOS, Chicago Sun Times Staff Reporter
dmihalopoulos@suntimes.com
Last Modified: Jun 18, 2012 02:10AM
David Axelrod — the top campaign adviser to President Barack
Obama — sold his ownership stake in ASGK Public Strategies in 2009, when he
became a senior White House adviser.
But Axelrod didn’t cut his ties to the Chicago public
relations firm completely. He still has an office there. His name is on the
door. His old partners are still paying him the five annual $200,000 payments
they agreed to when they bought him out.
Now, two of the firm’s clients — Citibank and the Chicago
Cubs — have a lot riding on decisions to be made by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the
Axelrod friend and former White House colleague who ran on a pledge to reform a
City Hall he described as riddled with influence-peddling.
Axelrod says he had no role in landing those contracts and
isn’t involved in the work ASGK is doing for Citibank, which wants to help
finance Emanuel’s highly touted Chicago Infrastructure Trust, or for the Cubs,
who want Emanuel’s help in financing a major renovation of Wrigley Field.
Axelrod says he didn’t even know Citibank was an ASGK client
until a reporter told him.
“I knew they represent the Cubs — I’m a huge fan,” says
Axelrod, who’s back in Chicago from Washington to guide the president’s
re-election campaign, which is based here. “But I have not been involved in the
[Wrigley] project and don’t know the details of it.”
Axelrod says the terms of his deal with ASGK “are fixed and
unaffected by these deals” with Citibank and the Cubs.
Emanuel’s top spokeswoman says hiring ASGK won’t win
Citibank and the Cubs any favors from City Hall.
“If you think hiring Axelrod’s old firm will get you special
access or privileges, you are sorely mistaken,” says spokeswoman Sarah
Hamilton. “No person or company has an inside track into City Hall.”
Still, the public is rightly skeptical when companies with
insider connections are involved with government, especially when the stakes
are high, says David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute
at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
Yepsen says the Cubs and any firm that wants a part of the
potentially lucrative Infrastructure Trust should engage in “total
transparency” about who’s helping their efforts.
“I don’t want to say they shouldn’t be doing business with
the city, but they have to do their ‘moving and shaking’ in the open,” Yepsen
says. “Rahm Emanuel, Axelrod’s old firm, these banks — they don’t need any
inference of impropriety or cronyism. They have to show they have nothing to
hide and that what they are doing is in the public’s interest.”
ASGK quietly has played a role in a number of major issues
at City Hall, among them helping win City Council approval in 2008 for the
Chicago Children’s Museum’s now-abandoned plan to move from Navy Pier to Grant
Park.
The firm’s executives don’t register as lobbyists because
they say they don’t ever directly lobby — contacting public officials on behalf
of their clients. Rather, they say they help clients get their stories out in
other ways — with “media relations, message development, advertising, social
media and constituency relations.”
Another Axelrod-founded firm — AKPD Media and Messaging —
recently produced ads critical of the Chicago Teachers Union, which is
embroiled in a contract dispute with Emanuel. AKPD oversaw Emanuel’s ad blitz
during his mayoral campaign, and the firm is a paid consultant to his political
committee, state records show.
Like ASGK, AKPD continues to pay Axelrod for selling his
stake in that firm. AKPD owed him $2 million, to be paid over four years, when
he became a White House aide, Axelrod told federal ethics officials.
Both AKPD and ASKG are housed at the same River North
address that’s also home to Axelrod Strategies, the firm he founded upon
leaving the White House last year. “I rent space in my old offices, but I work
full-time out of Obama headquarters these days,” Axelrod says.
ASGK’s managing partner, Eric Sedler, won’t talk about the
work the firm is doing for the Cubs and Citibank.
Dennis Culloton, spokesman for the Cubs’ owners, won’t say
what ASGK is doing for the team but says it was hired in the past year and
answers to Michael Lufrano, the team’s general counsel and executive vice
president of community affairs.
The team needs support from Emanuel and the City Council to
advance its $300 million plan to rehab Wrigley. In April, Emanuel said
negotiations for a Wrigley deal were in the final stages. Then, the mayor
reacted angrily to reports last month that Joe Ricketts — patriarch of the
family that owns the Cubs — was part of a conservative group considering a
since-dropped plan for a $10 million attack ad campaign on Obama.
Emanuel has since declared that that won’t affect
negotiations with the Cubs, but Hamilton says City Hall currently isn’t engaged
in any Wrigley talks. “If and when they do resume, the mayor will make his
decision based on what is best for taxpayers,” Hamilton says.
Citibank and a fund called Citi Infrastructure Partners —
which won’t talk about ASGK’s work — were two of the five financial institutions
that Emanuel singled out at a March 1 news conference with former President
Bill Clinton at which he announced the formation of the Chicago Infrastructure
Trust. Citibank and Citi Infrastructure Partners told city officials they’re
considering investing as much as $200 million apiece in the initiative, which
is designed to use private dollars to pay for public works projects.
Asked how the firms came to be involved in the initiative,
which hadn’t been approved by the City Council, Hamilton says Lois Scott,
Emanuel’s chief City Hall financial officer, relied on her 30 years of
experience in the private sector and “made calls with an open invitation . . .
to express investment potential.”
A newly nominated, five-member board will screen applicants
to finance Infrastructure Trust deals. With only seven aldermen dissenting, the
Council quickly approved an ordinance creating the trust in April.
Ald. Will Burns (4th) — who voted for the trust — works for
ASGK. Its website lists him as a managing partner. Burns says he doesn’t work
on the Citibank account and had been unaware that Citibank is an ASGK client,
though Citibank is listed as a client on the firm’s website. “I don’t do a lot
of work for ASGK, to be very frank,” Burns says, adding that city ethics
officials assured him that his vote for the Infrastructure Trust wasn’t a
conflict of interest because “any number of financial institutions can
participate in the trust.”
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Copyright © 2012 — Sun-Times Media, LLC
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