George Ryan (R), governor from 1999 to 2003, was convicted in 2006 of corruption related to his time as Illinois Secretary of State in the 1990s, when commercial driver's licenses were issued to unqualified truckers in exchange for bribes, and one of the truckers was involved in a crash that killed six children. Former governor Jim Thompson, whom Ryan had served under as Lieutenant Governor of Illinois in the 1980s, was manager of the law firm that defended Ryan. Ryan was released in 2013.
It was actually a rhetorical question.
Big Jim Thompson was US Attorney before he became governor. Put a lot of Richard J. Daley’s guys in the hoosegow.