Retiring City Treasurer Kurt Summers trashes Rahm on Twitter
Retiring City Treasurer Kurt Summers trashed Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Twitter on Monday for a host of offenses ranging from closing public schools and mental health clinics to Emanuel’s handling of the Laquan McDonald shooting video.
Summers was responding to a tweet from David Axelrod, the mayoral pal and former Obama administration colleague now serving as director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
Axelrod was promoting his interview with Emanuel on the “Axe Files” show he does on CNN.
In a tweet, he quotes the mayor as blaming lax gun laws in neighboring states for Chicago violence.
Summers responded to
Axelrod’s tweet by unloading on the mayor who appointed him.
“He also argued that it stems from a lack of VALUES in our community,” Summers wrote.
“Slavery. Systemic oppression. Jim Crow. Mass incarceration. Closing 50 neighborhood schools. Covering up murder of a 17-year-old… but black people in Chicago lack values?!”
Emanuel’s communications director Adam Collins refused to comment on the Summers broadside.
It’s not clear what set Summers off. But his Twitter tirade was a classic example of biting the hand that feeds you.
Summers was appointed by Emanuel to the city treasurer’s job after the surprise resignation of Stephanie Neely.
The pre-election appointment to fill a vacancy that nobody else knew existed gave Summers a leg up in the 2015 election. He ended up running unopposed.
The insider appointment left the ambitious Summers scrambling to establish his independence from the mayor, particularly after the furor caused by Emanuel’s handling of the McDonald shooting video.
He flirted with running for governor only to endorse now Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker.
Both before and after Emanuel pulled the plug on his own re-election bid, Summers flirted with running for mayor only to announce his retirement from politics.