Ickes had some very serious legal issues in the late 80s, early 90s. He was unable to join the grifter administration until those problems were resolved. I simply cannot remember the details at the moment. They may have had something to do with union 'irregularities'.
I recall the vague outlines of a scandal of a few years back (1997) (when he was forced to testify on the stand and had some convenient memory losses regarding campaign contributions). IIRC, it wasn't enough to put him behind bars, only enough to taint him a la Clark Clifford with BCCI, etc.