Chicago Ald. Willie B. Cochran isn’t the kind of guy to let a little thing like a federal indictment stop him from enjoying a night on the town.
So Cochran — indicted in December for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his 20th Ward charity and using the loot to gamble and pay for his daughter’s education — made an unexpected appearance Thursday night at a special preview screening of "The Obama Years: The Power of Words," a new Smithsonian Channel film about former President Barack Obama.
Understandably, the 64-year-old wasn’t too keen to discuss his legal troubles, beyond insisting, as he has before, that he is "absolutely" innocent.
But he did volunteer to Chicago Inc. that he was likely the only person in the room of smartly dressed Democrats and creative types who could boast that the former president had once acted as his lawyer — at least, sort of.
Back in the early 1980s, when Cochran was a Chicago cop serving on the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation, Obama "was our young attorney, and Valerie Jarrett was the chairwoman of the board," Cochran said of Obama, who attended Harvard Law School and trained as a lawyer.
"I’ve learned so much from him and the people around him," he added at the event at Comcast’s Studio Xfinity in Lincoln Park.
Today Cochran is ably represented by one of the best and most prominent defense attorneys in town, Tom Durkin. But would he swap Durkin for Obama if he could?
The Obama Years: The Power of Words trailer
The Obama Years: The Power of Words trailer (Smithsonian Channel)
The Obama Years: The Power of Words trailer (Smithsonian Channel)
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Cochran wasn’t biting. "Listen, it was a great lesson," he said. "It was a great experience to know (the Obamas) at that level and to have a relationship with them is something that was very encouraging."
Perhaps not the first endorsement Obama would have sought out but heartfelt, nonetheless.
Smithsonian Channel filmmakers picked the oratorical highlights of Obama’s career for their movie, including his 2004 DNC speech, his responses to the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook and at the Emanuel AME Church, and his Selma address on the 50th anniversary of the famous civil rights march, and, as an example of his use of humor, his address at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner.
Curiously omitted from that last speech was arguably the most memorable and consequential section: his evisceration of Donald Trump‘s birtherism, often speculated to be the moment that a humiliated Trump vowed to take the White House as revenge.
Smithsonian Channel senior vice president of production, Charles Poe, told Inc. that the moment was not included in the film because it was "too political" for the Smithsonian.
kjanssen@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @kimjnews
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