CHICAGO — Jurors on Thursday heard the first of some 200 recordings in the trial of ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a blockbuster corruption case that hinges in large part on government wiretaps and secretly recorded video.

“This is no longer me talking,” said Michael McClain, Madigan’s confidant and now co-defendant, in the wiretapped November 2018 phone conversation with then-Skokie Rep. Lou Lang.

“I’m an agent, somebody that cares really deeply about you, who thinks that you really ought to move on,” McClain said in the call.

On the stand Thursday, Lang said he knew McClain was saying he was simply a messenger for Madigan, who was no longer interested in giving Lang a more powerful position within the House.

“The Speaker wanted me to leave,” Lang told jurors, saying that he believed if he went quietly then Madigan could use his influence to throw some business his way.

Lang has already testified twice for the U.S. attorney’s office about the embarrassing episode that ended his political career, which centered on an accusation of sexual harassment that Madigan believed was about to go public.

Last year he took the stand in the perjury trial of former Madigan chief of staff Tim Mapes as well as the “ComEd Four” bribery case, in which McClain and three others were convicted.

But this was the first time Lang testified with his old boss in the room. Early on in his two hours on the stand, Lang was asked to look around the courtroom and identify Madigan.

“He’s waving at me,” Lang said.

Madigan, seated at the head of the defense table, had indeed raised his hand in a friendly wave.

During his testimony, Lang told prosecutors he had no ax to grind against Madigan, and was testifying, like the prior occasions, only because he’d been subpoenaed by the government.

Did you want to come in and testify? Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu asked.

“I would prefer not to be here,” Lang said with a slight smile, prompting a chuckle from at least one juror.

In the wiretapped call played for jurors, McClain noted that Madigan had recently fired his longtime chief of staff Tim Mapes, due to the sexual harassment scandals that had enveloped the speaker’s office, and that Lang’s potential new accuser had threatened to go public if he stayed “in leadership.”

“Well, alright,” Lang said. “So that’s something I’ll have to consider, but more important that what she has to say is what he has to say.”

McClain assured Lang he wouldn’t have a hard time finding work, particularly with Madigan’s backing. Lang replied he’d already had an offer or two, but “may just choose to go it alone.”

“I appreciate you leveling with me,” Lang told McClain. “I wouldn’t do anything to damage my speaker or my caucus. He’s been very good to me.”

Lang wound up resigning days before he was to be sworn in for a new term in January 2019.

Prosecutors have played up the episode to reinforce that Madigan called the shots in Springfield and was consumed with staying in power above all else. The recordings also buttressed allegations that McClain acted as an “agent” for the famously reclusive speaker, delivering messages and completing “assignments” for his boss even after McClain’s retirement from lobbying in 2016.

Asked Thursday whether the call had an impact on his career, Lang did not hesitate.

“It was very clear to me from this call that my career had dead-ended, because the speaker was in control of my ability to move up the ranks and get the leadership that I wanted to have,” Lang testified.

He said he later met alone in person with Madigan to “look him in the eyes and get his own comments about these issues.” He said Madigan confirmed what McClain had told him.

Before the wiretapped call was played, Lang gave jurors a meticulously detailed view of how bills made it through the House – or didn’t.

And he reiterated what prior ex-legislators have said on the stand: Madigan had final say over which bills had a chance of becoming law and which would languish in committee.

“Every once in awhile the Speaker or (Madigan’s) chief of staff would just say ‘hold the bill.’ Sometimes there’d be an explanation and sometimes there wouldn’t,” Lang said. “… The ultimate decision-maker was always Speaker Madigan.”

On cross-examination from Madigan attorney Todd Pugh, Lang noted that Madigan never explicitly ordered him to do anything, and Lang said he never voted against his conscience due to an instruction from Madigan.

Lang initially voted no on the “Smart Grid” legislation pushed by ComEd that prosecutors allege was central to the bribery accusations against Madigan. He suffered no consequences from Madigan for that vote, he testified.

And there were many reasons – strategic, political or otherwise – that a bill could die in committee, Lang noted.

Pugh also asked Lang to explain the roles of the other branches of government, like the Senate and the Governor’s office, in an apparent attempt to show that Madigan’s House was not an all-powerful entity in Springfield.

Also expected to take the stand Thursday is State Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island. Rita also testified in the ComEd Four and Mapes trials.

Madigan ruled the Democrats “through fear and intimidation,” Rita told jurors in the ComEd Four trial.

Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise, scheming with utility giants ComEd and AT&T to put his cronies on contracts requiring little or no work and using his public position to drum up business for his private law firm.

Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

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