Rahm Emanuel Says Police Murder He's Accused of Covering Up Still Haunts Him

[Celerity]

Supporters of Emanuel’s nomination had been increasingly anxious about how he would hold up under intense questions about his troubled tenure as Chicago's mayor.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/rahm-emanuel-says-police-murder-hes-accused-of-covering-up-still-haunts-him



Seven years to the day after the murder of a Black teenager by a white Chicago police officer, the man accused of helping cover up critical evidence of the crime told the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations that his past actions shouldn’t disqualify him from being the next U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Rahm Emanuel, a former congressman, White House chief of staff, and two-term mayor of Chicago, told senators on Wednesday that “there’s not a day or a week that has gone by in the past seven years and not thought about this and thought about the what-ifs” of the murder of Laquan McDonald and its aftermath—but said that while he “clearly missed the level of distrust and skepticism that existed” from Black Chicagoans, he has since earned the support of civil rights organizations and a relative of McDonald’s, all of whom can speak “to my person and my character.” “It doesn’t take away from the fact that a grave tragedy occurred,” Emanuel said gravely, “and that tragedy sits with me.”

Emanuel’s inclusion in President Joe Biden’s slate of political nominees to key U.S. ambassadorships abroad has rankled civil rights leaders, progressive Democrats, and Chicago activists, who say that the former mayor’s actions in the aftermath of McDonald’s murder are incompatible with a prestigious diplomatic posting.

“For 400 days, Rahm Emanuel tried to cover up the truth of what happened to Laquan McDonald,” Kina Collins, a progressive Chicago congressional candidate, said in a statement ahead of the hearing that was signed by more than 20 civil rights leaders and relatives of victims of police brutality. “For 400 days we marched, organized, and protested for the release of the police dashcam footage, because we know that too often, police lie when their own careers are at stake. And for 400 days, that officer escaped justice, because Emanuel was more concerned with his own re-election than he was with justice for a child murdered on his watch. This is a complete slap in the face to Black America.”

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[DeeNice]

1. He's fortunate he has the option to fade quietly into retirement

and I wish he would. There is no getting around it, he was either actively involved or complicit, either way not good. He failed that family and the entire city.