Check who she hired.

Quote:With election season in high gear, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and her office have retained some high-powered legal assistance in the ongoing probe of Foxx’s controversial handling of the Jussie Smollett case.

Ruben Castillo, the former chief judge of the Northern District of Illinois and now a partner at the politically connected law firm Akerman, has been helping the state’s attorney’s office for the past three months to vet voluminous materials requested by special prosecutor Dan Webb.

In addition, Foxx has brought in well-known Washington, D.C., attorney Michael Bromwich to represent her personally in the Smollett matter, which has become a flashpoint in the Democratic primary.

Castillo said in a telephone interview Wednesday that his team was retained by the state’s attorney’s office in October to handle requests from Webb, who was appointed as special prosecutor last year by Cook County Judge Michael Toomin.



“Like any other entity, the state’s attorney’s office needed representation because of the breadth and scope of Judge Toomin’s order that really authorized Webb to look at anything and everything,” Castillo said.

Castillo, who worked for Webb as a young prosecutor in the 1980s when Webb was the U.S. attorney, confirmed to the Tribune that his firm has been billing the county a “deeply discounted” hourly rate of $250 to $375 for its work on the Smollett case, which he said is less than half what the firm typically charges.

Asked why the firm took the case, Castillo said, “Out of a spirit of public service.

“I can tell you that no one is making big money here,” he said.

He would not venture a guess at how many hours have been put in so far but said he hoped his role would wrap up as soon as possible.




The payments would have to be approved by the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

A spokeswoman for Foxx also would not disclose how much Castillo’s firm was being paid but said it was not unusual for the office to retain outside legal counsel, particularly in complex civil cases.

Bromwich, of Steptoe & Johnson, is a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice best known for representing Christine Blasey Ford during the Brett Kavanaugh nomination hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court last fall.

A spokeswoman for Foxx’s campaign said Wednesday that Foxx had personally retained Bromwich "because that’s what smart lawyers do when they are involved in complex litigation.”



But officials would not say how much Bromwich was being paid.

“Neither the taxpayers nor her campaign are paying for Mrs. Foxx’s personal legal representation,” the spokeswoman said.

Bromwich was unavailable for comment on Wednesday. Foxx’s team declined to make her available for an interview.

The hiring of Castillo and Bromwich was first reported Tuesday by Crain’s Chicago Business.

Foxx is facing three Democratic opponents in the March primary: former Assistant State’s Attorney Bill Conway, former county and federal prosecutor Donna More and former Ald. Bob Fioretti. There are two Republicans running for the position: former Cook County Judge Patrick W. O’Brien and former county prosecutor Christopher Pfannkuche.



Although Foxx has made criminal justice reform and the use of restorative justice practices her focus as a way of offering relief to African Americans and Latinos who have been historically overrepresented in the courts, jails and prisons, her handling of the Smollett case is what has drawn national attention and continues to fuel criticism and calls for her to be replaced.

The actor allegedly staged a hate crime and was accused of hiring two men to pretend to assault him while using racist and homophobic slurs and shouting that he was in MAGA country — a reference to President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan. Smollett was charged with faking the crime, but Foxx later dropped all 16 counts filed against the actor, who is best known for his role on the Fox series “Empire.”

Her handling of the case drew outrage from then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and then-police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and is currently under investigation.

The move also rallied Foxx’s detractors, who say it is evidence that she’s soft on crime, and residents and leaders who said Smollett got special treatment because he is famous and connected.

On Wednesday, Conway said taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for Foxx’s office’s legal defense.

“Kim Foxx gave a politically-connected celebrity a sweetheart deal,” Conway said in a statement.

“Hiring a high-powered criminal defense attorney will never erase that stain,” he said. “Now she’s forcing the county to cover the costs of defending her two-tiered system of justice without even disclosing how much Chicagoans will end up paying. It’s not right to stick taxpayers with the bill for this high-priced legal team to come up with excuses for the inexcusable as she runs for re-election.”

Fioretti said he was outraged by the disclosure that Foxx had retained such costly legal representation.

“Kim Foxx is using taxpayer money again to pay for her own incompetence and dishonesty,” Fioretti said through a spokesman. “Kim Foxx has got to go.”

Meanwhile, there has been no public indication of when Webb’s now 4-month-old probe into the Smollett case may conclude. Earlier Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reported that Toomin recently ordered Google to turn over a trove of Smollett’s emails, photos, location data and private messages for an entire year as part of the investigation.

Castillo, who stepped down as chief judge in mid-2019, would not disclose the exact nature of the requests he’s had to vet on behalf of the state’s attorney’s office, but said Webb has been “very thorough."

“No stone is being left unturned," he said.

In probing the internal processes that led to the surprise decision to drop the disorderly charges against Smollett, Webb is undoubtedly asking for sensitive communications between Foxx and other top members of her staff, including emails, texts and other documents exempt from disclosure.

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When you have an enormous pool from which to pick and you choose someone like Foxx to be your county's State's Attorney, you've shot yourself in both feet and your mouth, unless of course you never really intended to back up your police or reduce crime in the first place.