A veteran Illinois political reporter quit his job at the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday and accused the newspaper of bowing to pressure from Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner by removing him from the campaign beat.
Dave McKinney, a 19-year veteran of the paper who covered the state capital, said in his resignation letter that the paper reassigned him after the Rauner campaign accused him of a conflict of interest, which he denies.
The Rauner campaign had asked the Sun-Times to disclose McKinney's marriage to a Democratic party consultant when it ran the reporter's story on allegations Rauner, a wealthy businessman, threatened a former executive at one of his companies.
McKinney said in his resignation letter, posted on his personal blog, that his wife is contractually barred from consulting on the gubernatorial race. A disclosure of conflict of interest would have been untrue, he added.