Tuesday. He is accused of bribery and lying to the FBI.
Jones' father, Emil Jones, was the president of Illinois state Senate and while largely forgotten now, he played a pivotal role in elevating the career of Barack Obama while he was a member of that same body.
The original story is gone, but 14-years ago I posted an excerpt from an article written by Todd Spivak for the Houston Press.
Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.
"I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen," State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time." Barack didn't have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.
"I don't consider it bill jacking," Hendon told me. "But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book."
During his seventh and final year in the state Senate, Obama's stats soared. He sponsored a whopping 26 bills passed into law — including many he now cites in his presidential campaign when attacked as inexperienced.The senior Jones wasn't shy about elevating Obama, as he told a radio host, Clifford Kelley, many years ago.
'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"
"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"
"Barack Obama."In the summer of 2008, after winning his Democratic primary, Jones retired. His replacment on the general election ballot? Emil Jones III. Now the younger Jones is in trouble.
From ABC Chicago:
State Sen. Emil Jones III has been hit with federal bribery charges as part of a yearslong investigation involving the politically connected red-light camera company SafeSpeed LLC.
Jones, son of former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr., is also charged with lying to the FBI.
The charges against the younger Jones point to a Senate bill filed in February 2019 requiring a statewide study of automated traffic law enforcement systems, including red-light cameras.
The feds say Jones agreed that, in exchange for benefits from an individual with an interest in SafeSpeed, he would work to limit such studies to systems used in Chicago, "thereby excluding from study and recommendations automated traffic enforcement systems utilized in numerous other municipalities" served by SafeSpeed.
Illinois and Chicago are rotten to the core.
Just asking: Will there be an Emil Jones exhibit at the Obama Presidential Center?
No comments:
Post a Comment