Chicago attorney Tina Tchen reportedly dodged a subpoena requesting documents of her conversations with the Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx surrounding the investigation of Empire actor Jussie Smollett.
Tchen, who was formerly chief of staff to Michelle Obama, refused to to meet with a process server that was trying to serve her the subpoena at her office, according to reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times. The guard told the process server that Tchen “knew about” the subpoena, but that she refused to come down and accept it.
The subpoena was issued by former Illinois Appellate Judge Sheila O’Brien, who is advocating for a special prosecutor to look into how the Foxx’s office handled the dismissal of charges against Smollett. The subpoena issued to Tchen was for “any and all documents, notes, phone records, texts, tape recordings made or received at any time, concerning [Tchen’s] conversations with Kim Foxx in re: Jussie Smollett.”
Some of Tchen’s correspondence with Foxx was previously leaked. In one exchange, Foxx told Tchen that she “spoke to Superintendent Johnson. I convinced him to reach out to FBI to ask that they take over the investigation. He is reaching out now and will get back to me shortly.”
