The landmark corruption trial of former Ald. Edward Burke has stretched into its third day of jury selection, a process that U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall said would not be complete until Thursday “unless something magical happens.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, a total of 45 people had been questioned. At last count Tuesday evening, just 26 had made it through “for cause” strikes to the next round.

That’s a little more than half of the 47 potential jurors who are needed before attorneys can proceed to the next phase of selection, in which each side will get to strike a certain number of people from the jury pool without giving a reason.

The slow pace means opening statements in the case will likely be Thursday at the earliest. Since Friday is a federal holiday, it’s possible openings might be delayed until next week.

Kendall on Wednesday noted that there were still some procedural hurdles to clear before the next phase of selection can go forward.

“That’s kind of a hint to keep it short,” she told attorneys before potential jurors were brought in. “Let’s go to trial, folks. Ask the most important questions.”

Despite Kendall’s urging, the pace of questioning Wednesday remained the same if not slightly slower. Potential jurors were asked in granular detail about their social media presence, their gaming habits, their pets and their relationship with some of the entities that figure into the indictment: Binny’s Beverage Depot, Burger King, and the Postal Service.

Among those questioned Wednesday were a man who has a rescue snake named “Medusa” and two geckos named after anime characters, a homemaker who moderates a Jane Austen fan website, and a 20-year-old junior college student who works as a hostess at a chef Gordon Ramsay restaurant in the suburbs.

One man, when asked about his relationship to Burger King, said he met his wife there decades ago.

“She used to give me free Whoppers,” he said.

The proceedings got a jolt of only-in-Chicago political coincidence late in the day Tuesday when one of the prospective jurors disclosed that her neighbor in Hinsdale is the son of famed ex-Ald. Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak, one of Burke’s closest allies in the City Council in the 1980s who teamed up to block then-Mayor Harold Washington’s agenda.

The son of a Democratic ward boss and alderman, Burke, 79, served more than 50 years on the City Council and allegedly ran the Finance Committee like his own personal fiefdom before his office was dramatically raided by the FBI in November 2018.

Prospective jurors who live in Chicago were asked if they knew who their alderman was. Many of them answered that they did not. A few said they had heard of Burke, but didn’t know details about his case.

Burke is charged with 14 counts including racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity.

Burke’s longtime ward aide, Peter Andrews Jr., 73, is charged with one count of attempted extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, two counts of using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity, and one count of making a false statement to the FBI.

The third defendant, real estate developer Charles Cui, 52, of Lake Forest, is charged with one count of federal program bribery, three counts of using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity, and one count of making a false statement to the FBI.

At the heart of the indictment are more than a hundred secretly recorded meetings and phone calls allegedly showing Burke using his elected office to win benefits for himself, mostly through business for his private law firm.

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Burke’s defense team, meanwhile, will try to show that Burke’s maneuvering was nothing more than politics as usual.

The crux of Burke’s defense will likely be to knock down former Ald. Daniel Solis, who was caught in his own corruption scheme before agreeing in 2016 to become an FBI mole and secretly record Burke.

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