Madigan, ex-ComEd defendants assembled a high-powered legal team for appeals court arguments this month

Six months after ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan surrendered to a federal prison, a new team of legal heavyweights is preparing to argue before an appeals court the once-powerful Democrat and others convicted of corruption deserve to be cleared.

It may be an uphill battle, given the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals already refused to let Madigan and former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore remain free while arguing for new trials, along with longtime lobbyist Michael McClain.

But all three have recruited top-notch lawyers with experience arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court — which may be their ultimate end game. For now, the 7th Circuit is set to hear arguments Thursday for Madigan, and April 14 in the case of Pramaggiore and McClain.

The new defense team includes Paul Clement, a celebrated Supreme Court advocate and former U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush. Clement is expected to argue for Pramaggiore.

Amy Mason Saharia will argue on Madigan’s behalf. Her past clients include ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Former Illinois Solicitor General Joel Bertocchi will argue for McClain.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julia Schwartz and Irene Hickey Sullivan will ask the appeals court to reject arguments from the three former powerbrokers, who were convicted in two separate trials. Madigan is serving a 7 ½ year prison sentence, and McClain and Pramaggiore are each serving two-year sentences.

Madigan and Pramaggiore sought to avoid prison while their appeals play out. The law required them to show they’d raised a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in reversal or a new trial; a sentence of no prison time; or so little prison time it could be served before the appeal is done.

The 7th Circuit rejected their requests last fall.

Jurors convicted Pramaggiore and McClain in 2023 of a conspiracy to bribe Madigan, in part by engineering a deal in which five Madigan allies were paid $1.3 million by ComEd over eight years. The allies were accused of doing little or no work for the money, paid through intermediaries.

Also convicted in that trial were former ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and onetime City Club President Jay Doherty, but they did not appeal their convictions.

A separate jury convicted Madigan in 2025 for his role in the same conspiracy. It also found him guilty of a plot to install then-25th Ward Ald. Danny Solis on a state board in exchange for Solis’ help securing private business for Madigan’s law firm.

Despite similarities between the two cases, the timing of the trials create a crucial difference. In 2024, the year between the convictions, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling on a bribery law that’s central to each.

That means Madigan’s trial went forward with the benefit of guidance from the high court. But lawyers for Pramaggiore and McClain say their convictions should be “doomed” by the ruling, as well as a second from the justices involving another Chicago politician that followed in 2025.

“Anne Pramaggiore does not deserve to spend another night in prison based on convictions that are dependent on legal theories undermined by not one, but two, intervening Supreme Court cases,” Clement wrote in a recent brief filed with the 7th Circuit.

Clement has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, including some of the biggest cases of the current term. He argued in January on behalf of Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, against President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove her from office.

He also represented the Libertarian Party of Mississippi in last month’s arguments over the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day.

In 2021, Clement delivered the prevailing argument in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Judges are still grappling with the ramifications of the 2022 decision that followed, which said gun regulations must be “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

Saharia, who has also represented Democratic U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Cory Booker in an amicus brief before the Supreme Court, delivered a successful argument there last fall about the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. She once clerked for Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Saharia is representing Madigan along with Lisa Blatt, another prominent Supreme Court advocate who boasts an 82% win rate there. Her victorious clients include James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, whose corruption case clarified the bribery law at issue in the Madigan and ComEd prosecutions.

Bertocchi, McClain’s lawyer, worked as a federal prosecutor in addition to serving as the state’s solicitor general, and he now advises clients on public corruption, racketeering and fraud statutes.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Snyder case will factor into both arguments. It found in June 2024 the bribery law used to convict Madigan and the others does not criminalize after-the-fact rewards known as “gratuities.”

Defense attorneys say the new standard requires a “quid pro quo” — or meeting of the minds — to prove bribery.

The ruling led to the dismissal of bribery convictions against Pramaggiore, McClain and their co-defendants. But in Madigan’s case, U.S. District Judge John Blakey let prosecutors move forward with a so-called “stream of benefits” theory.

The feds once described it, in the case of convicted ex-Gov. George Ryan, as “more like a meal plan in which you don’t pay for each item on the menu. Rather, there is a cost that you pay, an ongoing cost, and you get your meals.”

But Madigan’s attorneys say that meant prosecutors “never proved a quid pro quo on a concrete question or matter.”

“No evidence proved that Madigan made (or was asked to make) any connection between ComEd’s hiring decisions and specific pending legislation,” they wrote.

Madigan’s lawyers also say Blakey incorrectly instructed jurors on the definition of the word “corruptly.” The word appears in the bribery law and was debated by the Supreme Court’s justices in April 2024. They never defined it themselves, though.

Separately, Madigan denies he ever struck a corrupt deal with Solis.

Prosecutors say the ComEd scheme amounted to “quintessential bribery.” And they insist he not only took advantage of his position to get Solis to steer business to his firm, but he tied Solis’ bid for a state board seat to a request that Solis help Madigan’s son, Andrew.

Andrew Madigan has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Pramaggiore and McClain still sit in prison, even after U.S. District Judge Manish Shah tossed their bribery convictions last year. That’s because they remain convicted of conspiracy and falsifying books and records.

Clement says that’s “indefensible,” because “the government’s concededly invalid theory that a gratuity was a bribe infected every count.”

“The government tried this case as a ‘bribery’ case from start to finish,” he wrote. “… The government — not Pramaggiore — must live with the consequences of its mistake.”

Clement and Bertocchi also point to a second ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of former 11th Ward Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, convicted in 2022. The high court found last year that a law Thompson was convicted under outlaws false statements — but not misleading ones.

The false records convictions for Pramaggiore and McClain are based on “omissions” in ComEd’s records rather than false statements, Bertocchi noted.

“This prosecution should have never been brought,” Clement wrote. “And it certainly cannot survive the twin blows of Snyder and Thompson.”