Kim Foxx’s Best-Laid Plans Are Falling Apart
With the resignation of Michelle Mbekeani, is Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx house of cards collapsing?
For Cook County’s top prosecutor Kim Foxx, the transformation of the criminal justice system into a political arm of the most radical faction of the Democratic Party was once bright and full of possibilities.
With the Democratic machine and the most corrupt media in the country behind her, Foxx won two elections even as Chicago steadily descended into chaos from violent crime. Foxx purged the prosecutor’s office of long-serving, excellent attorneys and replaced them with doting lapdogs eager to fulfill her mission of judicial activism. Offenders were let out of prison, cops indicted on the most loony charges, and a breathtaking alliance of media activists, corrupt civilian oversight agents, useless city attorneys, and sell-out judges all gave way to Foxx’s war on the criminal justice system.
Something happened as a potential third term approached, something the public will likely never know the full story about, but somehow Foxx had lost the support that propped her up through so many of her painful press conferences and speeches of her first two terms that were little more than leftist babble. Foxx didn’t get the nod to run again.
Her acolyte Clayton Harris was scheduled to fill the void, a move that would no doubt assure that Foxx’s back would be covered for all her transgressions. The plan backfired. It looks as if somebody failed to “discover” enough ballots. The inevitable “aha” moment when election oversight officials suddenly discovered thousands of new ballots finally came in and there weren’t enough of them to prevent a reformer, Eileen O’Neill Burke, from securing the nomination for the Democratic Party. Burke is now heavily favored to win in December.
In the likely expectation of her acolyte Harris securing the election by any means necessary, Foxx had imposed one key position to make the transition to Harris smooth, Michelle Mbekeani. Even more radical than Foxx herself, Mbekeani, an attorney with very little trial experience, was placed in the crucial position of head of the Conviction Review Unit. Such a placement of an unapologetic activist to a key position in the justice system is another example of how Democrats hijack institutions and programs and turn them into instruments of their political wars. The CRU is no exception. After Foxx was gone, Mbekeani would no doubt continue the war on justice that Foxx initiated by helping vicious killers and rapists claim they were falsely convicted.
But a courageous Cook County Judge, Michael McHale, lashed out at Mbekeani about her seemingly dual roles working for an organization that helps convicted attorneys seek representation to beat their convictions at the same time she was working at the prosecutor’s office. When Judge McHale demanded explanations from Mbekeani about the conflict, he then called her a liar.
“While the above legal principles certainly apply to ASA Mbekeani’s conduct, this court also placed great emphasis on her complete lack of candor and her brazen attempts to evade telling the truth. In this court’s 17 years on the bench and 32 years working in the criminal justice system, it has never seen such manipulative efforts used before a judge in open court and to such a degree,” McHale wrote.
It is altogether crucial to understand that Judge McHale’s addressing of Mbekeani’s blatant conflict of interest was whispered about with great anticipation among prosecutors throughout the criminal courts building at 26th and California in the days preceding the court hearing in which McHale lambasted Mbekeani and Foxx. And when McHale delivered his remarks, none of the mainstream media in Chicago addressed it. It was hidden like so much evidence of Foxx’s corruption by a colluding, corrupt Chicago media, which, like Foxx, has constructed its narratives on the house of cards called the exoneration movement.
Oh what a tangled web we weave…
In the wake of the scandal about Mbekeani, she announced last this week that she is resigning from her position at the prosecutor’s office. Foxx’s once hoped-for clean exit from the horrors she imposed on the prosecutor’s office has crashed on the rocks of facts and truth, two odious entities to Chicago’s institutionalized corruption. No one, aside from those prosecutors who may have violated the law or ethics in serving her, is more nervous about the future of the prosecutor’s office than the Chicago media, which clearly relished the endless exoneration stories Foxx provided the corrupt collection of lapdogs claiming they are journalists.
Storm clouds now appear on the horizon. Let’s take a look at the most ominous ones.
Chicago City Wire has filed a Freedom of Information request for records connected to Foxx’s decision to release a host of inmates from prison on the claim that a retired detective, Reynaldo Guevara, coerced them into confessing. In the halls of the criminal courts building, whispers among attorneys, including current and former prosecutors, have long condemned these actions by Foxx as nothing more than selling out the prosecutor’s office to the defense attorneys who represented the men.
If Foxx truly was confident in the innocence of these men, one would think she would gladly hand over the records to refute the naysayers. But Foxx hasn’t. The paper has had to go to court to get them. What will those records reveal?
Here is one ominous outcome of the FOIA. If records emerge that these exonerations are the result of corruption in Foxx’s office, not only will Foxx and her media French poodles have some explaining to do, but so will the Chicago City Council, which has already paid out tens of millions on the “Guevera” cases.
Next up is the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which has also filed a FOIA for records pertaining to Mbekeani. Again, the organization had to go to court to get them. (Why??)
There’s another possible consequence of Foxx not answering this FOIA that may be emerging in the minds of those still working under Foxx. With Foxx on the way out, those in her office who may be stonewalling the release of the requested documents may be left holding the bag for not releasing the records. If the FOIAs have damaging evidence in them, how will those in her office look in not fulfilling the legally required records to the public?
Then there is Foxx’s troubling firing of prosecutors tied to high-profile cases, including the bizarre decision by Foxx prosecutors to drop charges against two Spanish Cobra gang members accused of murdering an off-duty cop working a second job. The other is her firing of prosecutors tied to the trial of Jack Wilson for his role in the infamous murder of two police officers in 1982.
Each of these is yet another potential scandal for Foxx. She is not alone. If the evidence emerges against Foxx, the media that has bolstered her through two dismal terms could also face backlash.
For reformers in Chicago, opportunity knocks.