Who Are the Mayor's Billionaire Pen Pals? Highlights From Rahm Emanuel's Private Email Accounts

CHICAGO, IL — Mayor Rahm Emanuel relased nearly 3,000 pages of emails from private accounts last week as part of a legal settlement with the Better Government Association, according to the watchdog group. And that avalanche of correspondence has revealed a list of prominent — and in many cases, very wealthy — political, business and media elites looking to potentially reap any benefits that might come with direct access to the mayor's office.

The settlement and release of 2,700 pages of emails Wednesday, Dec. 21, follows more than a year of legal manuevers and Freedom of Information Act requests by the BGA, as well as the Chicago Tribune, to gain access to two personal email accounts Emanuel used to conduct public business since taking office in May 2011. (A separate lawsuit by the Tribune is still pending.) In order to avoid similar issues down the road, the city also instituted a new policy Wednesday that bans employees from using private email accounts for official work.

During his time in office, Emanuel has used two non-city email addresses — a private Gmail account and an account with the suffix @rahmemail.com — to send and receive messages dealing with public and governmental issues, the BGA says. The mayor resisted requests to release the emails in those accounts, but two Cook County court decisions found that the private accounts of public officials were not exempt from Illinois' open records law.

So far, no revealing email "conversations" have been unearthed surrounding some of the controversies that have plagued Emanuel and his administration over the years, such as the Laquan McDonald shooting or the 2012 teachers strike, according to the BGA.

However, the email exchanges do show a direct pipeline of access to the mayor's office for a select group of advisers, political allies, business leaders and other local and natonal movers and shakers, the watchdog group said. In fact, three-quarters of the released emails are incoming messages — that is, people reaching out and, in many cases, requesting a favor or lobbying for some type of consideration — Adam Collins, a spokesman for the mayor's office, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The following is a look at some of the big names that have emerged from the released emails, as well as what topics those individuals discussed with Emanuel.

J. Christopher Reyes, co-chairman of Reyes Holding

In August of 2015, Reyes asked Emanuel if Monroe Street could be closed down for about two and a half hours in September of that year for his daughter's wedding, according to the Chicago Tribune. The city had twice rejected Reyes' official request.

Worth around $2.9 billion, Forbes lists Reyes as the 206th richest American, and Reyes Holding, a beer and food distribution holding company, is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. The 62-year-old billionaire also is a major Emanuel donor despite being a Republican, the report stated.

Emanuel did not respond to the street closing request, and no action was taken, the report added.

Ken Griffin, billionaire hedge fund manager

According to the BGA, Griffin sent an email to Emanuel in April concerning the poor condition of a bike path along the lake and a shooting near the University of Chicago, as well as mentioning the $10,000 worth of damage Griffin's car received driving over a speed bump.

In response, Emanuel sent a message to his assistant to schedule a meeting with Griffin, who contributed $400,000 to Emanuel's 2015 mayoral campaign.

David Plouffe, Uber executive

A former colleague of Emanuel's when the two worked in President Barack Obama's White House, Plouffe emailed the mayor in November of 2015 about concerns he had over the Chicago City Council making it harder to pickup ride-share customers at O'Hare and Midway airports, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Even though he was in China at the time, Emanuel passed along the complaint to his staff, and the council didn't make it harder for Uber — Emanuel's brother, Ari, also is an investor — and other ride-sharing companies to pickup customers at the airport, the report stated.

Plouffe wasn't the only person with Uber ties who took advantage of Emanuel's private email to look out for the company. Ray LaHood, a member of Uber's advisory board and former secrtary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, used that address to ask the mayor to look over a newspaper op-ed piece LaHood to make sure there was nothing in the article that could strain relations with the city, the Sun-Times reports.

Tom Ricketts, Chicago Cubs owner

In this case, Emanuel initiated a 2015 conversation, congratulating the owner on Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant being named National League Rookie of the Year, according to the Sun-Times.

Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois First Lady Diana Rauner

Currently political foes, Emanuel and Rauner developed a close friendship in the late 1990s, and their families were vacationing together as late as 2010, before one was mayor and the other governor. But being on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to state and city politics has strained, if not crippled, that relationship.

One particular divisive topic is education, something Diana Rauner emailed Emanuel about in June of 2012, according to the Sun-Times: "Congratulations on the $ for the web portal. But what are you doing about proposed cuts in [Chicago Public Schools] funding."

Media People

The mayor's personal email accounts also were used to contact newspaper, online and TV journalists, especially when it came to lobbying for coverage. New Yorker editor David Remnick and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer were among the national media players found among Emanuel's emails, according to the Sun-Times.

Several exchanges between the mayor and Chicago Tribune Editor and Publisher Bruce Dold, then the paper's editorial page editor, also popped up in the personal accounts, Dold's employer reports. In messages from June 2015, Dold offered editing suggestions to Emanuel concerning an op-ed article the latter submitted to the Tribune about the then-soon-to-be-unveiled sculpture installation by Yoko Ono in Jackson Park, the report stated.

Ultimately, the piece was rejected by the Tribune and was published in the Sun-Times, the report added.

City Officials and Staffers

Although the two accounts were considered personal and private, Emanuel handled these email addresses in much the same way one would handle any type of work email. Short updates between the mayor and city officials concerning the day-to-day business of running the city are as much a part of the released emails as messages from deep-pocketed business leaders.

According to the BGA, some examples of these internal emails include:

• former Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy providing updates concerning crime victims.
• Emanuel asking Alderman Tom Tunney (44th Ward) about police patrols in his ward (unfamiliar with the personal accounts, Tunney actually went to one of the mayor's assistants to make sure it wasn't a prank email).
• discussions over whether to close schools because of weather.

One area that might have benefitted from the private accounts was Emanuel's ego. Whether sincere or simply an effort to curry favor, flattering messages were part of the mix of emails released by the mayor.

And the compliments weren't reserved for Emanuel's civic or political activities. After he participated in the annual Bud Billiken parade only months after being elected to his first term, a spokeswoman for the mayor's office let her new boss know in an August 2011 email that he didn't embarrass himself at the event.

"He's so in shape," the PR flack wrote in the email about police officers and onlookers at the parade raved about Emanuel's physical fitness. "[Former Chicago Mayor Richard M.] Daley could never do this."

More via the Better Government Association, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times

Mayor Rahm Emanuel (photo via City of Chicago)

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