Federal judge changes his mind, spares ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel from testifying about 'code of silence'

A federal judge reversed course Friday and barred former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel from being called as a witness in an upcoming civil trial over alleged police misconduct.

U.S. District Judge John Tharp changed his mind two days after telling lawyers Emanuel “put himself in play” with a December 2015 speech acknowledging a code of silence at the Chicago Police Department.

The new ruling followed a flurry of court filings earlier in the day, in which each side pointed fingers at each other as Emanuel’s potential testimony drew nearer. The legal dust-up came as Emanuel, a Democrat, seems to be positioning himself for a presidential run in 2028.

The trial, set to begin Monday, revolves around the execution of a set of search warrants in August 2018. A woman, her children and their grandmother were forced out of their home at gunpoint even though they were not targets of the raid and were not arrested, records show.

Lawyers instead found themselves focused Friday on Emanuel’s potential testimony. The plaintiffs’ legal team complained that they’d suddenly been told to subpoena Emanuel’s personal lawyer, Ed Siskel, to secure Emanuel’s testimony.

Trouble was, Siskel was in London and didn’t know when he’d be back.

City Hall then accused the plaintiffs of instigating news coverage about Emanuel’s potential testimony. They had previously argued that the ex-mayor’s testimony would create a “media firestorm” and a “sideshow.”

In the end, Tharp’s reversal came down to whether the plaintiffs had properly disclosed Emanuel as a witness. The city’s lawyers insisted they had not. Further, they argued, Emanuel’s testimony would have been limited to confirming his statements in 2015.

The city’s lawyers said they won’t dispute, at trial, that Emanuel delivered the speech.

Tharp said the mistake in his earlier analysis centered on the disclosure by the plaintiffs that they’d want to share the contents of Emanuel’s speech with the jury.

“As I think about it further,” Tharp said Friday, “that does not mean that Mr. Emanuel is the only vehicle for admitting those statements. And it’s not a reasonable inference to say, ‘Because an exhibit is listed, the speaker in that exhibit must be intended to be a witness in the case.’”

Emanuel’s speech supports certain claims made by the plaintiffs. That means they wouldn’t want Emanuel backtracking on it, Tharp noted. The judge also confirmed that city lawyers had no intention of vigorously cross-examining the former mayor.

“I am going to reverse course,” Tharp said, “and I'm going to bar the plaintiffs from calling Mr. Emanuel as a witness in the case.”

Emanuel delivered the speech about two weeks after then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez charged Officer Jason Van Dyke with the murder of teenager Laquan McDonald. A jury later found Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder, and a judge sentenced Van Dyke to 81 months in prison.

In the speech, Emanuel described the code of silence as a “tendency to ignore, deny or, in some cases, cover up the bad actions of a colleague.”

The speech nearly landed Emanuel on the witness stand once before. Then-U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman agreed in 2016 that Emanuel could be summoned in the case of two officers who claimed they were branded as “rats” for helping the feds build a case against corrupt cops.

City Hall settled the case just before the trial began, scuttling Emanuel’s testimony.