In August 2022, the Grammy Award-winning rapper from Chicago known as Lil Durk bankrolled an attempt to avenge a prior killing and murder a rival in Los Angeles, according to federal charges filed late last week. That rival — Quando Rondo, born Tyquian Terrel Bowman — managed to escape with his life in the hail of bullets aimed at his car at an LA gas station, but his cousin Saviay’a Robinson was killed.
Less than a year later, in June 2023, Durk Banks, Lil Durk’s real name, helped bankroll the reelection campaign of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, to the significant tune of $150,000. That remains the single largest contribution to Johnson since his 2023 election outside of some trade unions, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Banks, 32, was apprehended on Thursday as he was attempting to leave the country, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which brought the murder-for-hire charges against him.
Given the facts laid out above, one would think the easiest of calls for Mayor Johnson would be to return the $150,000 and get himself as far away from this PR nightmare as possible and do it as quickly as possible. After all, that’s routinely what politicians do when big contributors are charged with serious crimes.
Recent example: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle during her failed campaign for Chicago mayor in 2019 returned $116,000 her campaign raised via an event sponsored by Ald. Ed Burke after corruption charges against him surfaced. Even after she returned those donations and called for Burke’s resignation, Preckwinkle’s eventual loss to Lori Lightfoot was due in no small part to the cloud that hung over her, owing to her past ties to Burke.
Second recent example: U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, running for mayor in the same election Brandon Johnson eventually won, returned a $2,900 donation from Sam Bankman-Fried after the cryptocurrency magnate was charged with fleecing customers.
In neither of these situations did Preckwinkle or Garcia take the position that distancing themselves from these accused criminals would amount to unfairly judging their guilt before they could defend themselves in court.
But that’s Johnson’s stance. Bizarrely, the mayor says if he were to return Banks’ contribution, that would be tantamount to passing “judgment on a Black man before a full trial has actually come to fruition.”
He added that it wasn’t his “position to determine the outcome of someone’s life.”
“I don’t know all the circumstances around these accusations, but again, what I do know for sure is that here’s another example of a young Black man who grew up in severe trauma that led to life choices that he has been very open and vocal about, healing from those choices,” Johnson added.
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Let’s unpack these assertions. First, returning a campaign contribution from an accused murderer isn’t the same as concluding he is guilty. Banks is indeed presumed innocent, and prosecutors have the burden of proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But the mayor easily could make that caveat clear while also quickly putting some space between himself and an individual accused of a terrible crime.
Banks is accused of masterminding a cold-blooded murder. Furthermore, his Chicago-based collective of rappers — called “Only the Family,” or OTF — is described by the LA-based U.S. attorney’s office as “a group of individuals who engage in violence — including murder and assault — at Banks’ direction and to maintain their status in OTF.”
Gang battles and retaliation are the source of an overwhelming percentage of the gun violence that plagues Johnson’s city, causes the trauma Johnson references frequently (including in his defense of Banks) to justify his policies, and gives Chicago the national reputation of being a crime-riddled city. Johnson is Chicago’s leader. Anything that could be construed as a tacit defense of such behavior hurts the very people Johnson has sworn to protect.
Likewise, the assertion that returning Banks’ donation would amount to “determining the outcome of his life” is nonsensical. Johnson will have no impact on Banks’ fate from here on out.
The third statement Johnson made — Banks has made unspecified bad choices and now is “healing” from them — is a little more nuanced. Banks, it has been reported, changed his ways in the last year or so. He posted on social media about his Muslim faith and helped fund some events to help Chicago kids. Politicians other than Johnson — Lightfoot and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx among them — have appeared cozily with Banks and endorsed his good works.
In September, Banks posted on X, “Everybody should get second chances in life. My background wiped and clean of all cases. I ain’t a felon anymore.”
Here’s the thing, though. Ordering and bankrolling the murder of someone, as Banks is alleged to have done, isn’t just a “bad choice.” And Banks wasn’t a teenager at the time of his alleged murder-for-hire scheme. The alleged crime took place in 2022, only a little over two years ago. Banks was 30 years old.
Additionally, one might think that someone who’s turned his life around would face the consequences of his past actions rather than run from them. The FBI apprehended Banks near Miami International Airport on Thursday. Here’s what Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s LA office, said in a release: “The apprehension of Mr. Banks as he attempted to leave the United States is once again proof that the FBI and our extraordinary partners at the Los Angeles Police Department have a long reach. No excuse can justify this violent act and let me be clear: While you’re going about your life, thinking you ‘got away with it,’ the FBI is piecing together the facts that will serve as your undoing.” (Banks’ attorney didn’t respond Sunday to our request for comment.)
We will see eventually whether law enforcement indeed has the goods to prove its case after “hundreds of hours” of investigation, including surveillance, multiple search warrants and forensics, according to Los Angeles police Chief Dominic Choi.
In the meantime, the mayor of Chicago is implicitly defending a major campaign contributor who, at the very least, appears to have attempted to flee the country as he was being sought to answer to allegations of heinous behavior.
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