Don't Worry: CPS CEO Is Not A Non-Target Of Fed Corruption Probe

CHICAGO — Taxpayers recently forked over $30,000 for private lawyers to represent three public school employees whom federal investigators want to talk to related to a criminal investigation.

Who are these employees? Chicago Public School officials won't say.

Did the FBI ask to keep all information about those employees secret?

"We are unable to provide the information you are seeking," a CPS spokesman said.

Why, exactly, are taxpayers footing the legal fees to represent secret employees of interest to federal prosecutors who recently squeezed a guilty plea from former CPS chief of staff Pedro Soto over lying to the FBI?

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Well, it was apparently a kind gesture on behalf of the state's biggest school district.

CPS officials say the U.S. Attorney's Office didn't tell them the nature of their probe, but did say the employees are "not under investigation for their conduct, but may have information or evidence that would be helpful."

So, the school district "offered to retain legal counsel to act as their personal representative to assist them in the interviews," a CPS spokesperson said in a statement.

The taxpayer-funded lawyers will represent the unnamed employees, and not the school system, officials say, so there is "no conflict of interest in the representation of the employees.”

If you, like me, worry that using the same public checkbook to prevent a conflict of interest seems like a conflict of interest — when we're most certainly talking about a tangent of the FBI's epic public corruption investigation in Illinois — school officials say there's no need to fret.

“The interviews are arranged directly between the employees and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Chicago Public Schools is not present, involved in, and has not provided any information in the interview process," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

If that doesn't make any sense to you, let me try to explain how a government spin machine operates in a crisis. It's the job of a government spokesperson to control the news narrative and distance their boss from controversy. A favored tactic is to provide the least amount of information in the most confusing way to create the appearance of upfront honesty without actually telling the whole truth. And, of course, ignoring as many follow-up questions as possible.

For instance, when the news broke that Soto, CEO Janice Jackson's chief of staff, was charged with a felony for lying to the feds about sharing information about $1 billion in custodial contract bids, CPS officials painted Soto as a rogue bad guy, acting alone — and ineffectively — by providing secret contract bid information to people representing a contractor who didn't even get the job.

“Soto’s alleged conduct represents a stunning betrayal of trust and an immense failure of judgement and character,” Jackson wrote in letter to staff that got shared with reporters. “There is no place in our school district for anyone who would engage in these activities, and we are moving forward without him.”

Translation: There's nothing else to see here.

Weeks later, however, there's a $30,000 legal bill for private lawyers representing unnamed CPS employees sought for questioning by the FBI that seems to suggest otherwise.

For that kind of money, taxpayers deserve to know whom we're defending — and why. It's particularly important since CPS is in the process of soliciting new proposals for the same kind of custodial contracts that feds say Soto lied to them about.

MORE ON PATCH: Chicago Public Schools Chief Of Staff Charged With Lying To FBI

What we've already learned from the federal corruption probe is that corruption the Chicago Way remains an inside job perpetuated by people with clout — lobbyists, bureaucrats, power brokers, elected leaders and the people they appoint. We're seeing it at every level of government in Illinois.

There needs to be more transparency about who is involved in the process of dolling out contracts in secretive deliberations.

Obviously, connected lobbyists know who the insiders are. The public should, too.

MORE ON PATCH: Are Feds Sniffing CPS Custodial Contract To Make Insiders Squirm?

Jackson's chief of staff was one of those insiders. Connections brought them together.

Soto got his start as a CPS administrative assistant with a high school education. He was a political operative in the 25th Ward organization of FBI mole and former Ald. Danny Solis.

Soto also worked in the CPS intergovernmental affairs department, which acts as a liaison between CPS and other government bodies including Chicago City Hall and the City Council. He was a paid $5,000 to be a consultant on former Mayor Rahm Emanuel's re-election campaign.

Jackson's connections to Soto date back to her days supervising a network of school principals under the leadership of the so-called "Chief of Chiefs," Denise Little, whose $325,999 salary made her CPS's highest-paid employee in 2017.

In July 2015, Little, Jackson and Soto all got promoted as part of Emanuel's CPS shake-up in the wake of a federal investigation that landed then-CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett in prison.

Former ComEd CEO Frank Clark, who has been named in federal subpoenas as part of its corruption probe, was tapped to take over as board of education president. Little was named senior adviser to CEO Forrest Claypool. Emanuel created a new position for Jackson: CPS' chief education officer. She tapped Soto as chief of school operations, her de facto chief of staff.

MORE ON PATCH: Corruption Probe 'Coincidence' Feels Like Vindication For CEO

When I asked CPS officials if Jackson placed Soto on the bid evaluation committee that led to his guilty plea, a spokesperson said the schools' CEO wasn't involved in the custodial bid process at all. And "any suggestion otherwise is false."

"Not only did Dr. Jackson did not [sic] place Mr. Soto on the custodial bid evaluation committee, she never placed Mr. Soto on any bid committees. Committee selections are made by the district's Procurement Office, and Dr. Jackson has never been involved in those decisions, even in her current role," the spokesman said in a statement.

"Bid committee members are selected from a variety of departments and report to the Procurement Department instead of their typical chain of command for the purpose of those assignments. This means that while Mr. Soto was serving on the evaluation committee in question, he did not report to Dr. Jackson on work related to the evaluation."

That left just an important question: Is Jackson one of the CPS employees who was gifted a taxpayer-funded private lawyer — that isn't a target of a federal probe — the FBI wants to interview?

"We are not able to confirm the individuals who were asked to speak with the U.S. Attorney's Office," said CPS spokesman Michael Passman, a holdover from the Emanuel administration spin machine, "but I can tell you that Dr. Jackson is not one of those people."

So there is no need to worry, taxpayers: Jackson is not one of the non-targets of a federal investigation.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots.

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