Pritzker responds to lawsuit, calls DeVore a ‘grifter’; DeVore threatens to sue…

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker responded to the lawsuit filed by attorney Thomas DeVore against 145 schools, Pritzker and the Illinois State Board of Education behalf of hundreds of parents of students over COVID-19 orders affecting school children.

“Well, you know, he’s a grifter who is taking money from parents who are being taken advantage of,” Pritzker said of the thousands of dollars the parents and their supported have paid Devore for his services. “This is, we are trying to keep kids and parents and grandparents and teachers and everybody that’s in the community of the school safe. That’s my job as governor, that’s our job as elected officials. And I have to say that, you know that going around and suing school districts and the governor and the Attorney General and everybody else in order to keep people less safe, that makes zero sense to me.

Pritzker made these remarks at a Thursday morning news conference.

“So we’re gonna push back as hard as we can, certainly we’ll be in court,” he said. “The Attorney General (Kwame Raoul), I just want to praise him and his staff. He has done an amazing job. You don’t want to spend all your time doing this, there are an awful lot of things that the Attorney General’s Office does to protect consumers out there.

“But the more you have to send lawyers out to fight these ridiculous lawsuits that are frankly making people less safe, that are harming our children, then you know, the less you can do to really lift up the entire state. So I hope that the, you know, the reign of grifting and terror that he is trying to bring about in the school districts will come to and end.”

UPDATE: After Pritzker’s “grifter” comments, DeVore said Thursday afternoon he’s hired an attorney and will sue the governor for defamation for being called a thief.

“That’s an insult to each and every one of my clients that are trying to protect their children,” DeVore said in an interview. “Not only is it defamation against my character and my profession, it is an insult against every one of those parents who are trying to protect their children.”