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Chicago mayoral forum: Garcia defends reputation after Lightfoot alleges corruption
Chicago mayoral candidate and Congressman Chuy Garcia defended his reputation for political honesty Wednesday night.
CHICAGO - Chicago mayoral candidate and Congressman Chuy Garcia defended his reputation for political honesty Wednesday night.
"Just because you swim with sharks, as long as you know who sent you to represent and fight for them, you don't become a shark," Garcia said.
Garcia spoke at a forum a few hours after Mayor Lori Lightfoot attacked him using some of her harshest language yet.
Standing in her official City Hall office space, the mayor once again all but called Congressman Garcia a crook.
"He doesn't want to talk about the fact that his name is showing up on fire — on federal wiretaps," Lightfoot said. "He doesn't want to be held accountable for being like a Trojan horse dragging corruption."
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The mayor's red-hot rhetoric about this rests, as far as we know, entirely on one Chicago Tribune story. It ran last month, reporting Garcia’s name was, indeed, mentioned "superficially" by someone else in a conversation recorded by the FBI.
The Trib story noted no evidence of any wrongdoing by Garcia, nor anything unethical. He was asked about it again at the forum by a political columnist for Crain’s Chicago Business, who acknowledged there appears to be, "no there, there" in this case.
"Let's be clear, Greg. The article in the Tribune also said that I was not subject of any investigation. Never have been, never will be. I've never talked to an FBI agent, haven't sought legal counsel. It said that my name was superficially mentioned in an unrelated conversation individuals were having," Garcia said.
Several more candidate forums are scheduled between now and Feb. 28, when all the mayoral votes will be counted, including one to be broadcast next week on Feb. 9 right here on FOX 32 Chicago.