Braun changes mind, will release tax returns
By FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter January 3, 2011 12:50PM
Consensus black mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun announces she will not release her income tax returns until after the election, saying, "I don't want to." | Al Podgorski~Sun-Times
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Updated: April 19, 2011 5:26AM
After refusing to release her tax returns, saying “I don’t want to,” mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun did an about-face Monday night. She will release her tax records — matching the disclosures already made by her three major opponents.
“She changed her mind. It is no big deal,” said Braun’s spokeswoman, Renee Ferguson. “She had intended to release them after Feb. 22, but everybody made such a big deal of it.”
Rahm Emanuel, Gery Chico and Miguel del Valle have already released their tax returns to give Chicago voters a greater understanding of how they made their money.
Emanuel and his wife made nearly $2 million over the last five years. After leaving the Clinton White House and before running for Congress, Emanuel parlayed his political connections into $16 million over three years as an investment banker. He also made $320,000 as a director of mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
Chico is an all-purpose mayoral trouble-shooter who has served Mayor Daley as chief of staff, school board and park board president and chairman of the Chicago City Colleges. His law firm does city bond business and represents a host of city contractors.
He and his wife made $2.6 million in 2009 and $2.9 million the year before.
Nearly all of del Valle’s 2009 income came from his $114,527-a-year salary as city clerk.
If Braun had chosen earlier to match their disclosures, she could have exploited a vulnerability of Emanuel and Chico, who have both been accused of cashing in on their political connections.
But when reporters reminded Braun that she has yet to let reporters see her tax returns, the newly minted consensus black candidate for mayor slammed the door.
“You won’t either until after the election. No. Not until after the election,” she said.
Asked why, she said defiantly, “Because I don’t want to.” With that, Braun ended the news conference called to repeat her promise to take Chicago parking meters back from private investors.
As she was walking out the door of her campaign headquarters, Braun was asked why she would refuse if she has nothing to hide.
“Oh, get out of here,” she said.
Chico was incredulous when told of Braun’s refusal to release her returns.
“Are you serious?” he said. “. . . I think it’s about transparency. There’s nothing to hide. You pay your taxes. You pay your bills. Give it out.”
Braun’s initial refusal to release her tax returns comes amid questions about her start-up organic food company and her personal finances, including a still-unpaid $250,000 loan she got from a controversial former campaign contributor, WJYS-Channel 62 owner Joseph Stroud.
The loan was made nine months after Stroud was found liable of harassing a former employee in a racially charged court case that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in November, the Sun-Times reported last month.
Braun has denounced Stroud’s actions as “reprehensible” and said she had no knowledge of the allegations against him when the loan was arranged.
Although the former U.S. senator has attempted to distance herself from Stroud, she’s still on the hook for the loan, which is secured through one of four mortgages on the five-bedroom, 4.5-bath Hyde Park house she is now attempting to sell for $1.9 million.
Braun appears to have fallen behind the original repayment schedule on that and another loan, the second from First Midwest Bank for $97,025, records show.
She originally promised to repay Stroud “in full” by Aug. 28, 2009, and to repay First Midwest on Jan. 5, 2009. She now claims the terms of both loans have since been renegotiated and that she is current with her payments under the new terms and up to date on her two other mortgages.
Contributing: Abdon Pallasch
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