Why is our former mayor even being considered for ambassador to Japan?
Maybe because Chicago teachers’ pension money flowed to financial companies connected to some of the mayor’s friends and top donors while he was in office.
In a 2015 story in International Business Times reported: “When Mayor Emanuel took office, he said he was going to stop the culture of pay-to-play,” said Alderman Scott Waguespack, who is among a group of lawmakers asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether the donations also violated that agency’s anti-corruption rule. “This is an example of his failure to follow through on those promises.”
Read the entire IBT story here.
The lack of transparency of teacher pension funds and their investors, fees, returns is not limited to Rahm’s relationship to the CTPF.
The Illinois Teacher Retirement System fired all five of its top executives. Only an investigation of CIO Jay Singh and financial officer Janna Bergscheider by the Governor’s Inspector General has been made public.
We still don’t know the details of TRS executive director Richard Ingrams departure over a year ago.
Fred Klonsky 
That’s shocking.The CTPF should release investment info involving venture capital.Im calling my state reps now to repeal this law.
From the International Business Times Article, it is apparent that Emanuel has played a Manchin-type role and worse within the power structure of the Democratic Party.
“Emanuel and Rauner have a long history [since even before Rauner was the Republican governor of Illinois]. In addition to vacationing together, Emanuel worked with Rauner when as an investment banker he reportedly represented GTCR in a corporate takeover deal that saw the firm buy a home-security company for $479 million and then sell it for $1 billion only six months later. SEC documents indicate that Rauner continues to hold a stake in a GTCR subsidiary. GTCR documents filed with the SEC indicate that the firm may shift underperforming assets into other funds part-owned by public pension systems to “earn fees.”
Yes, Fred, the lack of transparency of teacher pension funds and their investors, fees, returns is not limited to Rahm’s relationship to the CTPF. It seems obvious that certain connected people are above the law. Rahm and Rauner are proof that corruption is bipartisan and systemic. Our pension money is their plunder. How much? Which governmental people are willing to even investigate this ongoing crime?
Wish I could link. Outrageous story in yesterday’s Chicago ☀️-Times,
” Ex-Mayor Rahm Emanuel Japan Ambassador Financial Disclosure Report: Made $13 Million Since Leaving Chicago’s City Hall.” The story goes on to list, after “becoming a senior adviser to Centerview Partners Advisory Holdings, an investment banking firm…his income from Centerview amounted to $12,094,418, according to Emanuel’s disclosure…he also collected $700K in consulting fees from Wicklow Capital, a technology venture capital fund he started with in August 2019…if he…’return(s) to public service,’ the company will pay him 3 mos. of fees to total $150,000 to be paid before Emanuel becomes an ambassador…$310,472 as an ABC News contributor…$150,431 in board of director fees from GoHealth, an online health insurance marketplace he joined in February 2020. He also received shares of GoHealth stock…$77,500 in advances from publisher Alfred A. Knopf for the book, ‘The Nation City: Why Mayors are Now Running the World,’ published February 2020…he became a Sr. adviser to Describe Holdings in October 2020…does not get cash, he has stock option grants…Centerview will also pay him a ‘performance retainer’ when he leaves the company but before he takes on the role as ambassador.”
Lest you think this is all (& he HAS donated speaking fees to charity, “funnel(ing) much of that money through his firm, RIE Consulting, LLC.” “All the honoraria from… virtual speaking engagements” & the author did not list them all) “were donated to unnamed charities,” these equalling approx. $238,000 (REALLY?! Out of $13 mill.?! plus all the additional income?) ALL of these events (but one) were for investment firms, banks, Natl. Assn. of Realtors,; 5 of them with Chris Christie, 1 w/Karl Rove, 1 w/Reince Priebus & 1 w/John Kelly. 1 for Morgan Stanley; 1 for Goldman Sachs; 1 for American Fuel & Petrochemical Consultants; 1 for Duke Energy.
ADDITIONALLY, this VERY busy guy (WHERE does he get the time…he also manages to spend time exercising at the East Bank Club!) “has income generated from his extensive financial holdings & investments in residential properties in Georgia & Florida.”
I’m curious. Wouldn’t you like to see these “residential properties” & meet the tenants? I would!
Does THIS sound like a Democrat to you?
Where to begin on this one?
I wish Laquan McDonald’s family would sue him personally.
Or the parents of all the kids who went to those 52 schools he closed.
And joined gangs when they lost their school communities.
Oh,wait. I forgot that Arne Duncan is out there, saving them all… working from his N. Michigan Avenue office (for Laurene Powell Jobs), & lives in that nice mansion–as described in the Chicago Tribune’s “Elite Street”–$1.2 million, & just down the street from the Obamas’ mansion, where they don’t live, but still keep.