Obama surfaces in Rekzo's federal corruption case

January 20, 2008
BY DAVE MCKINNEY, NATASHA KORECKI, CHRIS FUSCO AND TIM NOVAK Staff Reporters

For the first time, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has surfaced in the federal corrupton case against his longtime campaign fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The Illinois senator isn’t accused of any wrongdoing. And there’s no evidence Obama knew contributions to his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign came from schemes Rezko is accused of orchestrating.

The allegations against Rezko that involve Obama are contained in one paragraph of a 78-page document filed last month in which prosecutors outline their corruption and fraud case against Rezko, who was also a key money man for Gov. Blagojevich and other politicians.

Rezko is set to go to trial Feb. 25. The revelation that Obama’s name could come up in court is a political headache he doesn’t need as he heads into a round of primaries that are likely to determine his party’s nomination for president.

Obama is not named in the Dec. 21 court document. But a source familiar with the case confirmed that Obama is the unnamed “political candidate” referred to in a section of the document that accuses Rezko of orchestrating a scheme in which a firm hired to handle state teacher pension investments first had to pay $250,000 in “sham” finder’s fees. From that money, $10,000 was donated to Obama’s successful run for the Senate in the name of a Rezko business associate, according to the court filing and the source.

Rezko, who was part of Obama’s senatorial finance committee, also is accused of directing “at least one other individual” to donate money to Obama and then reimbursing that individual — in possible violation of federal election law.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald declined to comment.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/749138,obama20web.article

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Even though I'm currently leaning towards Edwards, I have more respect, affection and admiration for Obama than I do for HRC. Here's an article that makes the stuff in Chicago seem tame or moot, by comparison.



October 1, 2007 Excerpt:

The Clinton Campaign's Reckless Race for Big Money Donors

By AL GIORDANO

The $850,000 that conman Norman Hsu bundled for Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign are the gifts that Clinton will have to keep giving back, harming her presidential hopes not just monetarily, but also morally and politically.

Hsu's upcoming court hearings together with a newly filed civil suit in California, plus the criminal (and likely civil) complaints pending against him in New York, will soon blast in stereo from the media capitals of both coasts. The courtroom fireworks will take away a considerable amount of the message control that the Clinton campaign has, until now, been able to deploy.

It's a story with sizzle and steak. Major media organizations including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek have put many of their top investigative reporters on the trail through which a fugitive from justice rose to become one of the Clinton campaign's top 15 fundraisers. With each new report, new lines of investigation open; the story has so many legs it's a caterpillar. Although very potentially harmful to Clinton's ambitions, the increasing scrutiny on those that provide and raise the millions required to win election to national office is long overdue and should be cleansing for democracy.

...This response was posted in another thread, but it bears repeating. In this case, it's not just the connection to Norman Hsu, but how the $850,000 was bundled, and who the contributions came from.

"...The problem is not Norman Hsu, his Ponzi schemes, or his tragic figure now rolling down the treadmill toward the buzz saw of justice. Hsu is not an isolated case. It is emblematic of the malignant negligence of the front-running Democratic candidate and her organization, the lack of due diligence when money is involved and the carelessness it exhibits.

The Hsu scandal involves both Senator and Bill Clinton -- you can't pull them apart on this one; two birds on the same wire hit by their own boomerang -- and it offers demonstrable proof that the protagonists that seek another Clinton White House have not learned well from the lessons of the first.

The Los Angeles Times reported that a seeming nobody like Hsu was able to glom onto the highest status in the Clinton organization:

When Bill Clinton received an award at a gala dinner honoring the late Robert F. Kennedy last year, the former president expressed his thanks before an audience that included a Nobel Prize winner and a glittering array of show business celebrities and Wall Street titans. Yet the second sentence of his remarks expressed special gratitude to a man almost no one there had heard of: "our friend Norman Hsu.

The former president still enjoys lifetime protection from the U.S. Secret Service, an agency that conducts a background security check on anyone that gets physically close to its charges. If the Clinton campaign did not know about Hsu's criminal debt with society, it is highly unlikely that the Secret Service--part of the US Department of Homeland Security, and answerable to the executive branch--was also ignorant. The Bush-Cheney administration's Secret Service had no legal obligation to inform the Clinton campaign that a warrant for the top fundraiser's arrest was outstanding from the state of California because it did not present a physical security threat to the Clintons. The threat was, instead, political, and so the ace was held up-sleeve.

Was the administration saving that red-hot news story for later, allowing Hsu to rack up even more campaign dollars for the Clinton campaign, to achieve his stated ambition of becoming Clinton's first one-million dollar bundler, to receive more praise from the candidate, pose for more photos at the right hand of power, only to then send the scandal swooping down upon the presumptive Democratic nominee like a smart bomb in, say, October '08? A strong indication of that likelihood came just weeks after The Wall Street Journal, in late August, opened season on journalistic scrutiny of Hsu, when federal prosecutors in New York "unsealed" a criminal complaint against Hsu that they have been quietly building all along...."

...It's not just Norman Hsu, but what's in that unsealed Federal "criminal complaint."

{Edit -- ...and come to think of it, this article's from last fall. What would Lexis & news searches show has been written in the months since? Wanna bet next to nothing? If this isn't being held in reserve as an October Surprise, what sort of accommodation has been made, to keep it off the front pages? For how long?}

What a Joke. :wtf:

And bought the lot next door, so Obama could later buy some of it and expand his property.

The facts:

Q: The seller of your house appears to be a doctor at the University of Chicago . Do you or your wife know him? If so, did either of you ever talk to him about subdividing the property? If you ever did discuss the property with him, when were those conversations?

A: We did not know him personally, though my wife worked in the same University hospital. The property was subdivided and two lots were separately listed when we first learned of it. We did not discuss the property with the owners; the sale was negotiated for us by our agent.

Q: Did you approach Rezko or his wife about the property, or did they approach you?

A: To the best of my recollection, I told him about the property, and he developed an interest, knowing both the location and, as I recall, the developer who had previously purchased it.

Q: Who was your Realtor? Did this Realtor also represent Rita Rezko?

A: Miriam Zeltzerman, who had also represented me in the purchase of my prior property, a condominium, in Hyde Park. She did not represent Rita Rezko.

Q: How do you explain the fact your family purchased your home the same day as Rita Rezko bought the property adjacent to yours? Was this a coordinated purchase?

A: The sellers required the closing of both properties at the same time. As they were moving out of town, they wished to conclude the sale of both properties simultaneously. The lot was purchased first; with the purchase of the house on the adjacent lot, the closings could proceed and did, on the same day, pursuant to the condition set by the sellers.

Q: Why is it that you were able to buy your parcel for $300,000 less than the asking price, and Rita Rezko paid full price? Who negotiated this end of the deal? Did whoever negotiated it have any contact with Rita and Tony Rezko or their Realtor or lawyer?

A: Our agent negotiated only with the seller's agent. As we understood it, the house had been listed for some time, for months, and our offer was one of two and, as we understood it, it was the best offer. The original listed price was too high for the market at the time, and we understood that the sellers, who were anxious to move, were prepared to sell the house for what they paid for it, which is what they did.

We were not involved in the Rezko negotiation of the price for the adjacent lot. It was our understanding that the owners had received, from another buyer, an offer for $625,000 and that therefore the Rezkos could not have offered or purchased that lot for less.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/124171,CST-NWS-obama05.article

Eleven Rezmar buildings were in the state Senate district Obama represented between 1996 and 2004. Many of the buildings ended up in foreclosure, with tenants living in squalid conditions, the Sun-Times reported last year. In one instance, Rezko’s company left tenants without heat for five weeks. Obama said he was unaware of problems with the buildings and minimized the legal work he’d done.

Obama’s relationship with Rezko grew closer in June 2005, when Obama and Rezko’s wife bought adjoining real estate parcels from a doctor in the South Side Kenwood neighborhood. Obama paid $1.65 million for the doctor’s mansion, while Rezko’s wife paid $625,000 for the vacant lot next door. Obama’s purchase price was $300,000 below the asking price; Rezko’s wife paid full price.

Six months later, Obama paid Rita Rezko $104,500 for one-sixth of the vacant lot, which he bought to expand his yard. In November 2006, he expressed regret about the transaction.

“It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else,” Obama said, “to believe that he had done me a favor.”

That's what I come to DU for.

I realize that campaigns these days are about throwing s--t against the wall, see what sticks and even if nothing does many will remember that something stinks about the target candidate. Particularly effective is the swift-boating tactic of attacking the perceived strengths of a candidate rather than just going after perceived weaknesses.

Of course we only do this, "because the repubs will do it and we have to vet our candidates." :banghead:

I am glad that Senator Clinton threw that in his face. Now, we need the news media to start investigating Obama's connection to Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.

:kick: and recommend