Illinois Republicano Sam McCann is 54 now. He was elected to the state Senate over a decade ago and served from 2011 to 2019, representing a district in central Illinois. When the GOP re-nominated the moderate governor, Bruce Rauner, McCann’s political enemy, he quit the party, started the Illinois Conservative Party and ran against Rauner as a MAGAt. (Rauner backed a primary opponent to McCann two years earlier and spent $3 million in an unsuccessful attempt to get him out of the legislature.)
McCann’s spoiler run was a transparent attempt to destroy Rauner— which he did— and Rauner saw what was coming. When McCann jumped into the race, Rauner’s campaign announced that “McCann is the worst kind of political opportunist who is only running for governor to line his own pockets. McCann’s unethical record speaks for itself. Public service should not be for personal gain and Sam McCann’s new ‘campaign’ is just a thinly veiled attempt to profit off of politics.” And Rauner sure hit that nail right on the head.
The Democrat in the race, J.B. Pritzker, now governor and would-be president, welcomed McCann to the fray and, surreptitiously, made certain that he was well-financed so he would draw votes away from Rauner. Pritzker would have won anyway, but McCann definitely scrambled the race and screwed up Rauner.
McCann’s legal problems stemmed from the 2016 race though. The Feds charged him with stealing campaign contributions for personal use. Last week McCann did a last minute about face and changed his years-long innocent plea to “guilty” of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering charges just as the federal prosecutors were about to rest their case. He also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from his gubernatorial campaign funds, money donated by Pritzker’s allies.
John O’Connor reported late Thursday that McCann pleaded guilty to 9 felony counts. He “made the reversal on the third day of a bench trial before U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Lawless. His latest lawyer, Jason Vincent, of Springfield, asked that he be released from custody as part of the deal, but Lawless nixed the idea, telling McCann his only option was to offer a no-strings open plea. He’s scheduled to be sentenced June 20 and will be sitting in a jail cell until then.