Bianchi lashes out at challenger
After two days of taking shots from a political rival, McHenry County State's Attorney Louis Bianchi fired back Thursday, calling attacks on his administration's ethics disingenuous and desperate attempts to undermine his achievements.
In a two-page letter to Republican primary opponent Daniel Regna, Bianchi harshly criticizes his rival for demanding the firings or resignations of two state's attorney staffers for working on his re-election committee and a third running for political office in a neighboring county.
"To so cavalierly suggest that anyone should infringe upon another person's rights to take part in the political process is un-American," Bianchi writes. "As state's attorney, I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and certainly not to violate it as you apparently would do."
Bianchi issued the letter a day after Regna hand-delivered his own missive to the state's attorney, demanding he either fire office manager Karen Rhodes and chief investigator Ron Salgado or remove them from his re-election committee.
Regna's letter also asked Bianchi to dismiss civil division chief Michelle Courier unless she resigns her post on the Boone County Board and ends her campaign for Boone County state's attorney. He also demands that two other state's attorney's workers resign their posts as GOP precinct committeemen.
In his response, Bianchi notes that while an assistant state's attorney in 2004, Regna mailed a letter to McHenry County sheriff's deputies urging them to support Bianchi opponent Glenn Gable.
"Suffice to say, I marvel at your hypocrisy," Bianchi writes.
On Thursday, Regna defended his work on behalf of Gable, saying that unlike Bianchi's supporters in the state's attorney's office today, he was not a supervisor or in position to set office policy.
"My past activities on Glenn Gable's behalf do not justify the insidious and nefarious political machine Mr. Bianchi has created and deeply entrenched within the state's attorney's office," he said. "My writing a letter to about 20 police officers I knew personally is not the same as what Mr. Bianchi and his advisers have done."
Regna, a former criminal prosecutor now in private practice, announced Tuesday he would challenge Bianchi, a first-term incumbent from Crystal Lake, for the Republican state's attorney nomination. The primary is scheduled Feb. 5.