Mike Madigan trial live updates: Ed Moody takes stand in ex-Illinois speaker trial

A defense attorney Tuesday worked to portray co-defendant Mike McClain as a good lobbyist.

Attorney Patrick Cotter continued to cross-examine star witness Fidel Marquez, and worked to make McClain out as doing his job, building and maintaining good relationships between Mike Madigan and ComEd.

Marquez said Exelon had a code of ethics, but didn't have any specifics regarding lobbying.

An exhibit showed ComEd paid close to $2 million for lobbying in 2017.

Marquez also said Madigan "didn't trust ComEd."

Tuesday morning attorneys discussed the legislative strategies and code words used during phone calls.

There was some discussion about the energy bills in Springfield that would be favorable to both ComEd and Exelon.

McClain's attorney asked Marquez if he had told the FBI in the past that he "never saw evidence of speaker Madigan taking any action to defeat or advance a bill that ComEd opposed or supported."
"I may have," he said.

Marquez added he pleaded guilty to trade action on jobs to consider ComEd's legislative agenda favorable.

After a four-day break, defense attorneys prepared to begin cross examination on Tuesday.

Last week, prosecutors have drilled in on star witness Fidel Marquez for three days.

Video recordings between Mike McClain and Fidel Marquez were played for the jury Wednesday.

In the videos, they discussed ComEd's renewal of the Doherty contract, and how to justify the amounts to the new CEO, Joe Dominguez.

Fidel Marquez was questioned on the ComEd summer internship program Thursday.

Mike McClain would forward several requests from the 13th Ward to Marquez to place certain people or students in the program.

Many were during 2012 to 2015.

It was noted that a lot of the candidates had worked at the Madigan-Quinn Service Office or in the 13th Ward, and at least two of them were hired despite their low GPA.

At least six to 10 positions were given to students from the 13th Ward.

"It was done as a favor for Michael Madigan," Marquez said.

A recording was also played of a conversation between McClain and Marquez about a request from Andrew Madigan.

Marquez said he treated requests from Andrew as if they were coming from Mike Madigan.