CHICAGO — The corruption charges against former House Speaker Michael Madigan are in many ways tethered to his longtime confidant, Michael McClain, a self-described “agent” of the speaker who was captured on FBI wiretaps pushing contract and job requests that he said came directly from Madigan himself.

On Wednesday, however, Madigan’s attorneys made their most aggressive attempts yet to distance the former Democratic leader from his co-defendant, strongly implying in a lengthy cross-examination of a key government witness that McClain used his relationship with the speaker to push his own, sometimes strange agenda.

In questioning former ComEd executive and government cooperator Fidel Marquez, Madigan attorney Tom Breen sought to portray McClain’s repeated name-dropping of the powerful speaker in emails and recorded conversations — often using flimsy code names such as “Himself” or “our Friend” — as a scare tactic to get things done.

Breen also attempted to ridicule the notion that Madigan, then the state’s most powerful politician, would have been concerned with nitpicky requests for ComEd, like giving more billable hours to a clout-heavy law firm or fulfilling recommendations for low-level jobs and summer internships.

“The person bringing you the message, he’s saying this is the message from the speaker?” Breen asked.

“That’s correct,” Marquez said.

“Your perception was that Michael Madigan was actually hands-on in the internships that ComEd provided kids? Do you really think that?” Breen asked Marquez, who wore a wire against McClain and others for federal investigators.

Marquez acknowledged that McClain was “annoying to deal with” and that because he mentioned the speaker’s name, he paid more attention to McClain’s requests and tended to them quicker. But he was steadfast in saying he genuinely did believe McClain’s endless slew of requests all came from Madigan.

To make his point, Breen asked Marquez specifically about an email McClain sent to him alleging that the speaker had remarked at dinner that there were “two Fidels,” one who was responsive and another who seemed to ignore their requests.

Breen asked Marquez if he really believed Madigan “was doing a psychological evaluation of you.”

“Yes I did,” Marquez said.

“You believed every word?”

“I did believe McClain,” Marquez said.

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.

Among the allegations: several Madigan allies got no-work subcontracts from ComEd; the utility reserved internships each year for young people referred from Madigan’s 13th Ward, and a law firm headed by Madigan fundraiser Victor Reyes was awarded a lucrative contract with ComEd, allegedly at Madigan’s request.

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

Marquez, the former vice president of external affairs at ComEd, began working with the FBI in early 2019 after agents confronted him at his mother’s home and played incriminating calls captured on a secret wiretap.

He went on to make multiple undercover recordings of his own, both audio and video, that have been played for the jury laying out the stream of benefits the utility allegedly extended to Madigan and his allies, mostly through requests relayed by McClain.

During Marquez’s four days of direct testimony, Marquez testified over and over that he and other ComEd insiders complied with the requests so that Madigan would look favorably upon ComEd-friendly legislation in Springfield.

In exchange for Marquez’s truthful testimony, prosecutors have said they will recommend a sentence of probation instead of prison time.

Marquez is expected to be back on the witness stand for a sixth day Thursday.

On Wednesday, the defense attacked Marquez’s credibility, questioning his motives for cooperating with the FBI and grilling him over episodes in his background that might paint him as untruthful.

Near the end of his cross-examination Wednesday morning, McClain attorney Patrick Cotter focused on Marquez’s attempts in 2014 to hide $400,000 in assets from his wife during their contentious divorce, a fact that he did not voluntarily disclose to federal investigators when he began cooperating.

Marquez’s divorce came up in Breen’s cross-examination as well, when Marquez acknowledged he had been found in civil contempt of court in 2022 for not turning over certain stocks to his ex-wife. He gave them over only after being threatened with jail time, he confirmed.

Cotter also questioned Marquez about some of the secret recordings he made for the government, including a videotaped meeting with McClain in February 2019 at Saputo’s restaurant in Springfield, where they talked about ComEd’s do-nothing subcontracts with several Madigan allies.

On the tape, McClain referred to the contracts as a “favor,” and compared them to another deal ComEd gave to lobbyist Liz Brown-Reeves, on the recommendation of labor leader Michael Carrigan. Cotter insinuated it was all business as usual in Springfield, where currying favor is a legal part of the lobbying game.

Cotter also pointed out the discussion took place in a crowded public restaurant in a political town where McClain is recognized by just about everyone.

“Despite that, at no point in this conversation … does Mr. McClain say, ‘You know, Fidel, why don’t we have this conversation somewhere private?” Cotter asked

“No, he doesn’t say that,” Marquez replied.

Breen, meanwhile, pressed Marquez on what agents told him the morning they confronted him at his mother’s home in Hammond on Jan. 16, 2019, attempting to contradict his hazy memory of the event with Marquez’s seemingly clear recollection of dozens of other conversations that prosecutors asked him about.

Did the FBI tell him they believed he’d committed a crime? Breen asked Marquez.

“When the FBI comes knocking at the door at six in the morning, it’s obviously for something,” Marquez said. “I don’t know if they said I was in trouble, but they played the tapes for me (and) I was sure it was not for something good.”

After the agents played him several recordings, they drove to a nearby strip mall parking lot to talk more in private, Marquez said. It was during that 45-minute session in the agents’ car that Marquez agreed to wear a wire and secretly record his colleagues.

Marquez acknowledged he was scared. When Breen asked when the FBI had brought up the prospect of prison, Marquez said he could not recall, but noted, “You know, it was a pretty sobering moment.”

“I can imagine it would be, and I can imagine you might have a perfect recollection of what was said,” Breen responded. “So I’ll ask you again.”

Marquez again said he did not remember precisely when the idea of prison time was first brought up.

Breen also pointed out that Marquez was close with the people he’d agreed to cooperate against, including McClain — whom he considered a good friend — and then-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, lobbyist John Hooker, and Jay Doherty, a consultant and head of the City Club of Chicago.

“You were in the ComEd family, weren’t you?” Breen said. “You celebrated birthdays together, drank together. … You’d tell them about your problems, they’d share some of their personal problems … and you agreed, without any consideration, that’s your testimony, to wear wires on your ComEd family, correct?

“Yes,” Marquez said.

In Cotter’s cross-examination earlier Wednesday, he asked Marquez about his attempt to purchase a firearm last year at a pawn shop to shoot rattlesnakes outside his Tucson home. In filling out an online form at the store, Marquez checked “no” to questions that asked if he was currently “under indictment or information” or had been convicted of any felony.

At the time, he’d already pleaded guilty to a felony count of bribery conspiracy and knew he faced up to five years in prison.

Marquez often wavered in his answers about why he filled out the form the way he did, saying at one point, “the word ‘information,’ as I read this form, it just didn’t resonate that I was under information.”

Cotter jumped all over that, asking: “Did the word felony resonate with you? That part of the court proceeding. … Did you remember the five years?”

Breen’s two-hour cross examination, while often entertaining, came across as unfocused, veering from questions about ComEd contracts and jobs for Madigan allies to a discussion about Marquez’s dog going through “snake avoidance training” in Arizona.

“Did your dog graduate?” Breen asked.

Marquez responded, “Yes,” and at the judge’s urging Breen then moved on.

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