‘A crock of ■■■■.’ Newly released transcripts of grand jury sessions in the aborted prosecution of the Broadview Six defendants make clear just how skeptical jurors were about the charges against protesters outside the Chicago-area’s ICE concentration camp back in September.
■ CNN: “The prosecutor then excused the grand juror—an approach so problematic, the U.S. attorney’s office cut short the session without asking the grand jury to vote again.”
■ Broadview Six defendant Brian Straw and his lawyer, Chris Parente, will join your Chicago Public Square columnist June 25 for a conversation about their tribulations. Admission will be free.
With Senate control on the line … Scandalized Graham Platner looked like the winner of the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Susan Collins this fall.
■ He delivered a stemwinder of a victory speech.
■ Ex-Republican political strategist Rick Wilson—whose role used to be to ruin Democratic candidates—explains “why MAGA’s hit job on Platner failed.”
‘A master stroke of paranoia.’ President Trump’s assertion—echoed by House Speaker Johnson—that the lack of evidence of election theft is proof of election theft sent expat Tribune columnist Kevin Williams, now a resident of Portugal, back to his high school reading of 1984.
■ Poynter’s Tom Jones: “Apparently, their motto is: If you can’t beat them, say they’re cheating.”
■ The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic: “Diabolical. The fact that there is no evidence is the evidence. See, voter fraud isn’t about what you can prove up here, it’s about what you feel in here, and what you can pull out of here.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “These piss-soaked diaper-babies are screaming their heads off about how everything is rigged.”
White House ‘freakout.’ In the first published excerpt of a forthcoming tell-all book by reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, The New York Times details the administration’s internal furor over the Epstein file revelations about Trump.
■ Now, CNN’s Brian Stelter says, Trump’s team has launched a “massive” hunt to find the leakers.
Burning cross in Chicago. The Fire Department doused an iconic hate symbol yesterday in Grant Park.
■ A Chicago church is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to arrest of a suspect.
House hotseat. Chicago Public Schools chief Macquline King had a date this morning on Capitol Hill to address hostile questions from Republican representatives up in arms about the district’s care for Black and transgender students.
■ See it here.
Shorter trains, longer tax waits. The CTA’s cutting the length of some weekend trains.
■ Putting the squeeze on schools, libraries and other government agencies that depend on tax revenue, Cook County property tax bills will go out two months late.
You are here. PolitiFact was driven to post this: “Trump dozed off in Oval Office. Did he wake himself up with a fart?”
■ The Onion: “Trump Still Sleeping In MSG Seat.”
■ Columnist Neil Steinberg tours Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center: “The place made me think of earnest interior designers laying bright fabric swatches on the back of a sofa in a house that’s on fire.”
‘I’ve been banned by Truth Social.’ Conservative former Chicago newspaper columnist Dennis Byrne writes that Trump’s site refuses to let him create an account—maybe “because I have disagreed with the president on occasion. I also don’t like him very much.”
■ Worry not: Your Square proprietor shared Byrne’s column on Truth.
And you thought Letterman and Colbert trashed it. Turns out not: The set of Stephen Colbert’s defunct Late Show has a new home—at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.
■ Two writers for Colbert’s show have launched a podcast.
■ Last Week Tonight show host John Oliver has reportedly fulfilled his dream of landing a role in a daytime soap opera.
Chill. With temps headed into the 90s today and tomorrow, Chicago’s opened a dozen cooling centers.
■ The AP: Even as Trump trumpets coal over clean energy, solar power’s become the leading source of new power for the U.S.
Thanks. Mike Braden made this edition better.