Mrs. Braun stunned the political establishment in 1992, unseating an incumbent Democratic senator in the primary — two-term lawmaker Alan Dixon — on her way to victory in November.
Her election was heralded as an advance for women and minorities, but her popularity proved short-lived after a much-criticized visit to Nigeria’s brutal former dictator, Sani Abacha, and accusations that she misused campaign funds.
A campaign-finance investigation cleared Mrs. Braun, but she lost her seat to Republican challenger Peter Fitzgerald in 1998. After the defeat, President Clinton appointed her ambassador to New Zealand.
She must have brought back enough cash or diamonds from Nigeria to buy her the ambassadorship, because Clinton didn't give ambassadorships away for free.
Link to the above snippet: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/sep/22/20030922-105432-7310r/
Illinois... Nigeria on Lake Michigan...
In 1996, Moseley Braun made a private trip to Nigeria, where she met with dictator Sani Abacha. Despite U.S. sanctions against that country due to Abacha’s actions, the Senator neither notified nor registered her trip with the State Department. She subsequently defended Abacha’s human rights records in Congress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Moseley_Braun
And having her mother in Illinois Masonic Hospital, Chicago as a welfare patient... and the nonpayment of taxes on timber contracts ...