Posted by John Byrne at 1:30 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley defended Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias today, saying the candidate should not step aside despite revelations about family-owned Broadway Bank.
"Why should he step aside? Tell me," Daley said. "He went through the primary."
"Everybody knew that, what was happening to the bank, so why?" the mayor added.
The Tribune reported earlier this month that Broadway Bank loaned a pair of Chicago crime figures about $20 million during a 14-month
period when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer in a story that provided new details about the bank’s
relationship with the convicted felons.
Broadway Bank had already lent millions to Michael Giorango when he and
a new business partner, Demitri Stavropoulos, came to the bank in
mid-2004. Although both men were preparing to serve federal prison
terms, the bank embarked on a series of loans to them. The bank also is in financial trouble.
Earlier this year, Daley offered a similar defense for pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen — who withdrew as the Democratic lieutenant governor nominee amid embarrassing revelations about his private life. Daley invoked Cohen today while talking about Giannoulias.
""You forced one candidate out for lieutenant governor, because you didn’t like his profession or his personal life," Daley said. "It’s really interesting, it’s just very interesting how people go through a primary, and say ‘You have to step aside because we don’t like what happened.’ "
In both the Cohen and Giannoulias cases, Daley invoked the sanctity of the primary election.
But the mayor declined to defend the importance of the primary election process in the race for Cook County assessor, where Democratic nominee and county Democratic Party Chairman Joseph Berrios has chastised Forrest Claypool — a former Daley chief of staff — for running as an independent rather than participating in the primary.
"I’m not going to get into all that," Daley said when asked about Berrios’ criticism of Claypool. "Everybody’s arguing about the primary. This is the general election and people are going to decide in the general election what’s going to come."