It takes a special ad to get a candidate for Senate so upset they hire lawyers to censor it. But that is what is happening in Illinois as the Alexi Giannoulias campaign has unleashed its lawyers on television stations who have been carrying this ad:
The facts of the ad are indisputable but not to Alexi Giannoulias and his trial lawyer buddies. They sent this letter to the stations demanding censorship because they claim the FDIC bailout of the Giannoulias family owned bank was not a “bailout.”
Letter to Station and System Managers[1]
The Giannoulias family bank — Broadway Bank — used its depositors money to loan money to the mob characters and fugitives of the law. Those benefiting from the lending practices of the Giannoulias family include Boris Stratievsky, a fugitive of the law who built a money laundering network received received more than $10 million from Broadway Bank. Giannoulias bankrolled Michael ‘Jaws’ Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution.
It’s little surprise that the Broadway bank failed, needing the FDIC to come in and rescue depositors money. That, my friends, is a bailout. Without the help of the Feds, depositors would have been ruined.
Comcast Chicago has blinked and are refusing to run the ad. Whether citizens ever get to see this ad, one thing is for sure, the Giannoulias campaign has made a fatal error by entering this debate. They have given the ad more attention that it might have gotten and they have awakened Illinois citizens about the scandal.