Obama & The "Slum-Lord": Smear Or Time-Bomb Scandal?

[ccpup]

In just four weeks time, on February 25th, Tony Rezko goes on trial facing federal charges of major corruption. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Saturday that Barack Obama has just been identified by a source as the unnamed "political candidate" referred to in a document that outlines the case against Rezko.

Obama is NOT accused of any crime. It is his friend and political patron for the last 18 years -- who has contributed nearly $170,000 to Obama's campaigns -- who is accused of attempted extortion, money laundering, and fraud.

The loathsome GOP Oppo Research teams and hatchet men who "unleashed hell on Al Gore" and who stoked the Swift Boat smears on John Kerry are digging far deeper into this story as you read these words...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/obama-the-slumlord-_b_82599.html

[Little Star]

1. Google this Huff and explain it to Patrick Fitzgerald.

NY Times article from June 2007
An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and MIKE McINTIRE
Published: June 14, 2007

snip>
Mr. Obama has portrayed Mr. Rezko as a one-time fund-raiser whom he had occasionally seen socially. But interviews with more than a dozen political and business associates suggest that the two men were closer than the senator has indicated.

Mr. Obama turned to Mr. Rezko for help at several important junctures. Records show that when Mr. Obama needed cash in the waning days of his losing 2000 Congressional campaign, Mr. Rezko rounded up thousands of dollars from business contacts. In 2003, Mr. Rezko helped Mr. Obama expand his fund-raising for the Senate primary by being host of a dinner at his Mediterranean-style home for 150 people, including some whose names have since come up in the influence scandal.

And when Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, bought a house in 2005, Mr. Rezko stepped in again. Even though his finances were deteriorating, Mr. Rezko arranged for his wife to buy an adjacent lot, and she later sold the Obamas a 10-foot-wide strip of land that expanded their yard.

The land sale occurred after it had been reported that Mr. Rezko was under federal investigation. That awkward fact prompted Mr. Obama, who has cast himself as largely free from the normal influences of politics, to express regret over what he called his own bad judgment.snip<

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/us/politics/14rezko.h... (Make sure to read both pages)


And here is another Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-rezko_b...

This needs to be vetted long before he gets the nomination of the Dem party. We don't need the R's bringing this to the table when it will be to late for our party. This crap is pretty damning, can anyone spell RICO?

[madrchsod]

5. june 2007?

fitzgerald was way ahead of that article when it was published.

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. My pet theory on vetting, the Clintons, and Rezko

Is that a number of months ago the Clinton camp got frustrated that the media had been sitting on stories like this and not publishing them until after the early primaries when the Democratic nomination might already have been decided. Stories about alleged problems the Clinton campaign itself had with fund raisers were making it into print in time to effect the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, but this was being sat on.

I suspect this story line, potent or impotent as it may ultimately be, is not a total surprise and new development. I think both Clintons knew this was out there but they weren't going to be the ones to directly call attention to it. They expected the press to do their normal job and got frustrated over a perceived double standard regarding the "vetting" of Democratic candidates for President.

[MethuenProgressive]

2. Barack's bragged before about his "Chicago Style" politics.

Let's see if Obama dumps Antoni "Tony" Rezko in da lake.

[madrchsod]

4. he already has dumped antoni

in chicago they bury people because nobody is dumb enough to dump people in the lake. if you`re going with "chicago style" at least get your facts straight.

[Nailzberg]

8. Cal-Sag channel works to. Or maybe take em to Gary and throw em in an incinerator.

Old steel mills are good for that.

[Little Star]

7. He did so with much pride.

[madrchsod]

3. smear

but it does`t matter to the obama is a republican,muslim,crook crowd.