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Trump-Russia pundit may run for Illinois AG post

A former federal prosecutor who’s become a prominent media pundit about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign and White House is considering a run for office.

Renato Mariotti, who spent nearly 10 years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, said Thursday he’s mulling a bid for Illinois attorney general.

“It’s something that I’ve been thinking about and considering very carefully,” he told POLITICO. “I’m trying to come up with a decision on [it] in the next week or two.”

The current attorney general, four-term Democrat Lisa Madigan, surprised the Illinois political establishment two weeks ago by announcing that she does not plan to run for re-election next year.

Mariotti, who has picked up more than 43,000 Twitter followers for his threads explaining developments in the Mueller probe and whose commentary has been featured in POLITICO , The New York Times and elsewhere, said friends and associates began texting and calling to urge him to run as soon as Madigan made her announcement. Friends and fans have started a "Draft Renato" drive. He said he expects several others will enter the race.

“She has had that spot locked down a long time,” said the ex-prosecutor, who has never run for public office. “Illinois is very top-down and has a machine element to it. Usually, there are sort of anointed people waiting in the wings, including a number of Illinois state politicians. I would be sort of an outsider. … I’m definitely not part of, sort of, the machine.”

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Mariotti, 41, said one factor leading him to consider a run is the sense he’s developed, from reaction to his Trump-Russia analysis, that some people are unwisely viewing Mueller as a savior of some sort.

“A lot of times people are placing all their faith in Robert Mueller,” Mariotti said. “He’s a fine man, but ultimately he can’t solve all their problems, which made me realize the importance of a job like this at this time.”

Mariotti became a partner at Chicago law firm Thompson Coburn last year after leaving his job prosecuting white-collar crime and fraud cases. The Illinois AG’s office doesn’t typically do much criminal prosecution, but does mainly consumer protection and environmental litigation, picking up criminal cases that county prosecutors can’t handle or pass off.

Mariotti attended the University of Chicago as an undergraduate, followed by Yale Law School. He said one key issue he’s trying to figure out is whether he can raise the money to make a credible bid.

“Ultimately, something like this requires a lot of resources,” he said. “I’m not a rich man. I only left the government a year or so ago. My dad didn’t graduate from high school and I grew up in a very blue-collar family, so I’m trying to figure all this out.”

Mariotti’s flirtation with a bid for the AG post was first reported by Crain’s Chicago Business.

