CASE TITLE: United States v. McClain, et al.
CASE NUMBER: 20 CR 812
ACTIVITY: Telephone Conversation between Michael McClain and John Hooker and Anne Pramaggiore
DATE: February 20, 2019
TIME: 6:57 p.m.
SESSION NUMBER: 20509
(CLIP 1 BEGIN)
MCCLAIN: But I wanted to have, uh, a drink with Andrew ‘cause, uh, I, I, I get assignments from his dad, but I also get assignments from him and so-
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: -I wanted to report on some. (Laughs.)
PRAMAGGIORE: (Laughs.) Well good for you. Um-
MCCLAIN: You, you’ll get a kick outta this. John, you will too. So Madigan calls me up about 4:30, and he says, “Mike, so uh, uh, uh, I’m told that Exelon Generation they want a bill, these green people they want a bill, ComEd wants a bill. So, I’ve always relied on you to be the lead on this kind of stuff. Now you’re gone, but uh but it’s gotta be somebody we trust. Who’s gonna be the lead here?”
PRAMAGGIORE: (Laughs.)
MCCLAIN: And John you know uh, I mean everything we did we di-, we did together so-
HOOKER: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: -I mean but, uh it’s gotta be somebody that kinda gets it so that when they get the call-
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: -I mean they gotta snap to and, and do it right away they can’t act corporately, they gotta do it right away. I don’t, I mean, wow.
PRAMAGGIORE: Well and they, and they gotta you know the other thing Michael is, you know this is, this is a different group that they have to deal with inside the company, and you have to have somebody who knows, that the, the Speaker trusts, and can sort through this stuff to make sure that the right information is flowing.
MCCLAIN: Right.
PRAMAGGIORE: If you understand what I’m, yeah.
MCCLAIN: Right so uh, so like the beauty about John and I is uh, when I would talk to the Speaker about it at dinner I, I would tell him like, “This is what the company wants. But, uh, if at the end of the day we go to-”
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: “-We get X instead of Y, uh Anne’ll be real happy.”
PRAMAGGIORE: Yep.
MCCLAIN: And so then he can focus on that right?
PRAMAGGIORE: Right.
MCCLAIN: I mean it was something-
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: -Right? Instead of like him whittling us down and not knowing what the bottom line was-
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: -We, we could be blunt and say okay we, we, we, we can’t go anything below X-
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: -Well that’s all, that’s all he needed to know.
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
(CLIP 1 END)
(CLIP 2 BEGIN)
MCCLAIN: I, I, I again offer. I don’t mind going to Chris Crane. If that terminates my contract that’s fine. But uh, this is uh, this is real serious. There’s no one, right now, that um, I can actually tell our friend, uh “This is the, uh, lead, and when you call that guy will snap to or that gal will snap to and know what to do and and uh get back to you.” ‘Cause, so I was the lead, but every time I called up John or you, you guys did things. I mean it uh there, there, there’s, there’s no one, there’s no one in the company that has that kind of smack right now.
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah. Well he’ll say Joe does.
MCCLAIN: Yeah but Joe, Joe uh, I don’t think he really respects Madigan. I, I, so I, I, uh I uh, I wouldn’t trust Joe. I, I would trust Joe to think that, that, that this is a quid pro quo and that he’s wired.
PRAMAGGIORE: Well Joe is trying to, like you said, he wants the next job.
HOOKER: So Anne-
PRAMAGGIORE: That’s what he’s thinking.
HOOKER: If you had to, if you had to think about how do you, who, who, who could that person be or how do we make it work? ‘Cause without having that, it’s gonna be difficult to get anything done.
PRAMAGGIORE: Well do you want an inside person? Is that what you’re saying?
MCCLAIN: Well it’s gotta have, it’s gotta, it, so it’s gotta be somebody. So I was just the contract person. I didn’t have to be the lead it could’ve been an inside person, but you guys said, “Okay McClain, the Speaker trusts you, you, you’re the lead.” But then I, I wa-I had to, uh I had the full back of you and, and Frank and John so when I talked to John, things got done. Right?
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
(CLIP 2 END)
(CLIP 3 BEGIN)
MCCLAIN: To me, this is my instinct is like let’s sleep on it-
PRAMAGGIORE: Yeah.
MCCLAIN: -I’ll be in the car from eleven-thirty to two o’clock tomorrow maybe we could have-
PRAMAGGIORE: Okay.
MCCLAIN: -Your secretary set up a time for a half hour or forty- five minute call. But my-
PRAMAGGIORE: Okay.
MCCLAIN: -instinct is um, and John, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but my instinct is that I come up to Chicago and I sit down with Dominguez and say, “Now look-it asshole, uh if you want to pass this bill, this is what it requires. So, either you’re gonna play in the tier-one game here or you’re gonna keep playing in your tier-two game here so, and if you wanna fire me today that’s fine but, uh this is like serious business, it’s millions of dollars. So either you wanna look like you’re the leader, and be the leader, but that means you’ve gotta authorize your people to do things. Or if you wanna keep playing your silly games with Richard Mark and everything, that’s fine but-” I don’t mind having a daddy talk with this guy.
(CLIP 3 END)
