2008 Return of Rezko
posted by on March 3 at 14:25 PM
Tony Rezko, the Chicago real estate investor and political maneuverer who once sold Barack Obama a plot of land, is back in the news because his trial is getting underway. (Trial liveblog here.) And that means more questions for Obama about his relationship with Rezko—questions that Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, claims he’s already answered, and that the investigative reporters covering the Rezko story claim he has not.
On ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, Axelrod had this exchange with Stephanopoulos:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Before you go there, David, let me just follow up on one point, because Lynn Sweet writes in the Chicago Sun-Times, I believe it was yesterday, that in fact Senator Obama has not sat down with the Chicago reporters who are most familiar with the Rezko case. Is he willing to do that, or is Ms. Sweet wrong, in your opinion?AXELROD: I think she is wrong. We’ve talked to reporters from — and he’s talked to reporters from both papers several times in several sessions about this, and each time the conclusion is the same: There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing related to Mr. Rezko.
On her newspaper’s blog, Sweet responds:
On Sunday, the chief strategist for the Obama campaign disagreed with my conclusion where I wrote that Obama has not talked to reporters who know the Tony Rezko story the best.For more than a year, that has been a pretty small group of investigative journalists—from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. I checked with the Sun-Times reporters before I wrote my column and rechecked again. They all said they have never had a chance to discuss Rezko with Obama.
At a press conference in San Antonio today, Obama did take some questions about Rezko from the traveling political reporters, but didn’t provide any new information. He said:
I entered into a real estate transaction with him where I bought a strip of land under an adjacent land he purchased. I said that was a mistake cause there was already a cloud over Tony Rezko. There has been no allegatiosn I did anything wrong, no allegations that I traded the public trust, no allegations that I did him favors. We have disgorged all the money (associated with him). That is the extent of the story.I understand this is a hot story at this point cause there is a covergence of a trial that is unrelated to me as a presidential candidate.
Who’s prosecuting Rezko? Why that would be Democratic hero Patrick Fitzgerald.
Figures that conservatives and Clintonistas can leap and scream over this, but McCain's dealings with Keating (among others) and Bill Clinton's with Frank Giustra are given a free pass in this cycle.
How about no free passes for anyone wanting to be president of the good ol U.S.A.?
So, you lost the bet to ECB about who had to attack Obama today, huh, Eli?
I clicked on the Fitzgerald link before realizing as it loaded that I was unknowingly giving a hit to a Novak column -- how about a warning on that link?
Well this is a start, but reporting denials of stuff without actually reporting the basic facts being denied isn't the best reporting. sorry.
here's the undisputed facts:
1. someone listed 2 parcels jointly ie you have to buy both to buy one.
2. parcel #1 had no house parcel no. 2 had a nice big house.
3. Obama couldn't afford to buy both as the seller required.
4. So Rezko bought the vacant one and Obama bought the one with the nice big house.
5. This is a benefit to Obama because he was able to break the 2 parcels apart when before he couldn't. Without Rezko's buying the other parcel, Obama could not have bought his house at all.
6. This benefit is a gift and violated Senate ethics rules against making gifts to US Senators.
7. In addition the seller knocked $300K off the price for Obama while Rezko paid the full asking price, ie this is another way of showing gift to Obama, this time with a specific dollar amount.
8. Then Rezko sold Obama a strip of land making the Rezko lot unbuildable ie unsale-able -- further confirming Rezko didn't buy it to build on it. Or to lie in the sun. Or to grow peaches. Or have a picnic. No, clearly one can fairly infer the whole purpose was to make a gift to Obama.
9. Rezko was indicted at the time. The crime?? Massive fundraising in exchange for sales of public office.
So saying "There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing related to Mr. Rezko" is wrong and should have been questioned. Saying all questions have been answered is: 100% denial.
10. You can throw in other undisputed facts like Rezko was Obama's "angel" investor for years, got Obama going in his campaign for US Senate through fundraising help, or how Rezko didn't even have the dough to buy the land because he's such a crook and a cheat ---and how he got the dough from some even more corrupt international slimeball over in Europe -- and how Rezko and this other slimeball have ties to Syria and Iraq -- or you can ask questions like Sen. Obama, what of all that did you know?
if you say you didn't know any of this how can that be true given your 17 year relation with this guy Rezko ?
if it is true, doesn't that call into question your judgment?
or, you gave back Rezko's campaign donations, and you said the land deal was a mistake, so why don't you undo the land deal, just like you undid the donations?
and a million other questions.
Sure.
And let's bring up Whitewater.
And Travelgate.
And the Vincent Foster suicide.
And Hillary's cattle futures.
And Hillary's cell phone franchise investments
And Hillary's fundraising dealings with convicted felons
And Hillary's botched health care plan
etc.....
If you want to get into which candidate is "cleanest" that's up for debate, of course.....
Or, we could realize that there's nothing there, just as there was nothing there with the Whitewater stuff.
But then we couldn't give free web hits to Traitor Bob Novak, who thinks outing undercover CIA agents with his buds Traitor Dick Cheney and Traitor Karl Rove and Traitor Scooter Libby is all fun and games ...
Please no. 6. Try to think.
It's not about HRC if our nominee is Obama and he's running against McCain.
It's about McCain v. Obama.
Obama's dealings with Rezko are on TV right now, MSNBC, Tucker, the Sun Times fellow says "yesirree, there are tons of unanswered questions." Even Tucker is amazed he's just now learning about all this. The reporter dude said Obama was claiming there was no agreement b/ the 2 of them to buy the two lots together and it was all a big coinky-dink that Obama's no. 1 backer for 17 years, who ran a massive corruption machine in Illinois politics, who was well known to be about to be indicted, showed up and made an offer for the adjoining land which just when OBama did.
Well I hope Obama didn't say that because that would be a pretty obvious flat out lie.
Plus, Obama got his for $300,000 off while Rezko paid full price for his, ie, this is a gift of several hundred thou to Obama.
This is direct, it's core, it's a very close associate of Obama and he's living in the house today.
Now, let's go compare Hillary.
Whitewater--um, there was nothing there.
And Travelgate--they fired folks and used FBI files. Well known, didn't prevent HRC from getting about 70% in NYS. So not a problem.
Vincent Foster suicide. WTF?? Are you fucking insane?? Or just shameless??
And Hillary's cattle futures.
Yes, like most pols, they hang out with richie riches and make money off it.
Not good! Just like Obama here. So.....he ain't so new and different is he. You just equalized him to HRC and her cattle futures. You made the point. Thank you.
And Hillary's cell phone franchise investments--not sure what that is about.
And Hillary's fundraising dealings with convicted felons--some of them insinuated themselves and she wasn't all that close to them -- not like Obama here. and Obama here has not returned the house.
And Hillary's botched health care plan
Um, she botched it like Truman and everyone else since. She said she did it wrong by not consulting committee chairs such as Moynihan. This was true. Later, Moynihan endorsed her at his own farm to kick off her campaign in NYS. IF he forgave her why can't you? She was wrong to not work it thru congress and has said so. When you try you fail. When you are a newbie you haven't tried so you haven't failed. True courage is trying again.
Ignoring Obama's flaws and limitations does not help anyone on the D side. They will come out and his electability will decrease. So this whole notion that he's going to magically win and the primaries are a good indicator of the result in the general is.....like a stock bubble. You have to project how he's going to do AFTER all this negativity comes out via GOP attacks.
that's all. I really don't think there's anything unreasonable in that.
what's not so logical is pretending this negative stuff just isn't there, or suggesting in November Obama can win a debate with McCain by pointing a finger to HRC negatives.
"Well I'm not as bad as she would have been, John"
that's your argument as to why this stuff isn't significant?
Whoa. You're sounding rather defensive there.
Isn't this a fun game to play?
Don't we accomplish a hell of a lot?
Let's just ignore this issue. There's no possible way that Republicans will use it in the fall. Obama is Different! Once he's the nominee, everything will Change and the Republicans won't be able to talk about things like this. See?
Return of Rezko?
It is not illegal--or against ethics rules--for a senator to invest in a joint venture (even if this were a joint venture, which it is not). If Obama were trying to make serious money, he'd follow the lead of elder statesman Ted Stevens of Alaska. "Armed with the power his committee posts give him over the Pentagon, Stevens helped save a $450-million military housing contract for an Anchorage businessman. The same businessman made Stevens a partner in a series of real estate investments that turned the senator's $50,000 stake into at least $750,000 in six years." Now *that's* how a senator invests with friends! http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1217-05.htm
I don't think Hillary's cattle futures shenanigans are going to get her into trouble in Texas.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).