Chicago City Wire

Candidate for Chicago's 41st Ward committeeman Ammie Kessem does not mince words when it comes to expressing her feelings about Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

“This woman has harmed the citizens of Chicago in so many ways,” Kessem, vice president of the Northwest Side GOP Club, told Chicago City Wire. “Her constituents are the criminals themselves.”

Kessem’s comments come in the wake of Foxx's recent announcement that she has no intentions of returning the $30,000 in campaign contributions that came from a 2016 fundraiser hosted by now-indicted 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke. Foxx’s position is in sharp contrast to that of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, her longtime political mentor, who returned all the money she received from a similar gathering after it became an issue during her Chicago mayoral run.  

Northwest Side GOP Club Vice President Ammie Kessem

The fundraiser at the center of the controversy was held at Burke’s home in the summer of 2016. Foxx's campaign insists that the money generated from the gathering was given to the nonprofit groups Equal Justice Initiative and the Brian Sleet Memorial Fellowship at Chicago Votes.

“I really hope the voters will recognize what she has done to them and vote her out of office,” Kessem said. “For me and my family and friends, it cannot come soon enough.”

Foxx, who recently announced her plans to seek reelection, has also recently defended her self-described “holistic approach” to prosecution.

"Trying to look end to end, [identify] the people who are coming through our system, both victims and defendants, and how do we know we're making an impact if we're seeing people cycle in and out of the justice system," she recently explained to ABC News.

Kessem previously ran for the House in District 19 in 2018, losing to now-Illinois state Sen. Robert Martwick (D-Chicago) after earning nearly 40 percent of the vote.