By: Mark Glennon*
Still deeper into the hole they go.
We finally got a response from Gov. JB Pritzker on what he knows about the Jenny Thornley matter, which we are following closely. As reported by The Center Square on Friday, Pritzker said he knows “Nothing other than what I read in the newspaper about it.” He added, “The truth is, if somebody committed workman’s comp fraud, they should be held accountable.” That’s all he said.
He either knows more about it than he said or he has been willfully derelict in his duty to find out what happened — the very duty to hold somebody accountable that he stated in his second sentence. Or both, which appears likely.
As background, his staff is alleged to have facilitated the award of a worker’s compensation claim to Jenny Thornley, a former state employee who earlier was a Pritzker campaign worker. After being terminated from her state job, she made the workers’ comp claim based on harm suffered in an alleged sexual harassment — a harassment that never occurred according to an investigation concluded at a cost of $550,000 to Illinois taxpayers. Payment on what therefore clearly appears to be a fraudulent workers’ comp claim continued for over a year after conclusion of that investigation, and it was allegedly awarded due to intervention by Pritzker’s own staff.
His claim that he knows nothing beyond the newspapers was made, as the Center Square accurately said, despite records alleging Thornley sent First Lady M.K. Pritzker a text message in February 2020 saying “I need JB to know.”
At the very minimum, Pritzker knows whether his wife did in fact let him know and how he responded thereto, none of which has been in the newspapers. Yet he did not provide that in his answer.
More importantly, if he really knows nothing and if he really wants to hold those accountable for the apparent fraud, he surely would long ago have asked his staff, “Hey, what do you know about this workers’ comp claim and what did you do to process it?”
This comes on top of what happened last week when Attorney General Kwame Raoul provided excuses for his failure to look into the matter — excuses that don’t square with the evidence.
The allegation that Pritzker’s staff did, in fact, help facilitate the fraudulent workers’ comp claim is highly credible. It has been made in two lawsuits, both of which are supported by documentary evidence.
First, the allegation is made by Jack Garcia in counterclaims filed in federal court. He was Thornley’s boss, against whom the bogus harassment claim was made. “To facilitate her Workers’ Compensation fraud,” Garcia’s filing says, “Thornley again repeated the false allegations against Garcia and relied on the aid of the Governor’s Office, even listing herself as an employee in that Office despite never having worked there.”
Garcia has a reputation for integrity, professionalism and credibility, which is expressly described in the 100-page investigative report exonerating him of the harassment claim.
Second, the allegation is also made in the whistleblower lawsuit filed by Emily Fox who worked in the same office with Thornley and Garcia and is now its executive director. From her complaint in that whistleblower lawsuit:
This extraordinary level of involvement by the Governor’s General Counsel in a workers’ compensation claim involving an independent agency of State government is a raw demonstration of improper political influence to assist a friend and supporter of the Governor at the expense of the People of the State of Illinois. It is made worse by the fact that the entire premise of Thornley’s workers’ compensation claim is the “assault”…that was debunked and proven false by both the $550,000.00 independent investigation undertaken by a law firm the Governor’s Office recommended and then again by an independent investigation of the Illinois State Police.
The legacy news media continue to ignore the Jenny Thornley matter entirely. They’ve asked about it only once, last week, when Pritzker and Raoul literally laughed the question off and Raoul went on to provide his apparently false excuses for doing nothing. But there was no followup in the press whatsoever aside from The Center Square.
Kudos, again, to The Center Square, which, alone, has been reporting on this.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Further background and commentary on the Thornley matter:
- Deeper into the hole he dug goes Attorney General Kwame Raoul on the Jenny Thornley matter
- We need more answers and less deflection about the Jenny Thornley affair – Wirepoints on 890 WLS
- Questions Mount Over Pritzker Administration’s Involvement In Thornley’s Alleged Fraud
- Answers needed as Illinois’ Jenny Thornley affair continues
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
AG Kwame Raoul, what a joke!
It’s the work of his life, and he just hasn’t started yet!
Who in the Governor’s office ordered a $500,000 independent investigation, and what information triggered the need for an investigation?
How was the outside counsel chosen, and on whose recommendation?
How many independent investigations have been originated by the Governor’s office since Pritzker was elected?
Pritzker wants us to believe that all of the above was accomplished without him knowing?
Saying that he read it in a “newspaper” shows his guilt, that’s a response someone would give 20 years ago. He has boxed himself into a corner.
This stinks, and the Feds need to step in.
So, if we are to believe JBP…
And this is true…
Someone in his administration can spend half a million $ without his knowledge, let alone authorization…?
Thats incredulous…
Relying on the old BHO dodge – “Nothing other than what I read in the newspaper about it.”, will not work this time I hope…
Per Mr. Glennon’s point that only Center Square and Wirepoints has been covering this, which Illinois “newspaper” did Pritzker read? Further, since all of the stories covering this fraud have rightly been critical or negative, wouldn’t any article be a huge red flag to Pritzker that this matter should be investigated further, if in fact Pritzker really read this? I’ll bet he speaks with Ann Spillane everyday, did he bother to ask her about this? Did Pritzker or anyone in his office even read the $500,000 report that Illinois taxpayers paid for? Pritzker’s feigned ignorance is not going to stand… Read more »
What a classic response from a guilty, dirty politician. Remember Obama learning about the NSA surveillance of citizens or the Fast and Furious gun running fiasco or the IRS targeting conservative groups from reading the newspapers? Yeah, JB, you’re in the dark on this topic. Even your wife doesn’t keep you informed.
Pritzker recently succeeded in lifting the Shakman decrees after 50+ years of Federal oversight. If you think state corruption and patronage are solved, this case assures us all that it is not. Thank you, Center Square and Wirepoints, for pressing hard on this growing scandal.
Mark, it’s Russian disinformation.
Yeah, some reporter would probably get a Pulitzer if they wrote that, just as they did for the original Russia collusion hoax, and those Pulitzers still have not been retracted.
On the bright side, it’s good to see he is apparently reading The Center Square and Wirepoints because without them, by his account, he would know exactly nothing. (The only exception is a series of articles in the Chicago Tribune done last year, but they were written before things really got interesting when the whistleblower lawsuit was unsealed recently. And the Tribune, for some reason, has dropped coverage of the story since last year.)
Maybe just maybe Mike Flannery might be interested in doing a story on this, maybe a email to him might spark something.