Daley had appointed Nesbitt commissioner of the Housing Authority on July 9, 2003, and he served as vice chairperson of the Board since January 17, 2006.
Nezbitt is also vice president of the Pritzker Realty Group, where he procures new real estate investment opportunities, retail investments and developments for the Pritzker Group, according to the CHA web site. A quick trip to the Huffington Post site showed tens of thousands of dollars donated to Obama from people with the last name Pritzker in the Chicago area but many people are listed as homemaker or not employed or information requested, so its impossible to sort them out.
Nesbitt is treasurer for Obama's presidential campaign according to the Center for Public Integrity. Over his political career, Nesbitt has contributed more than $10,000 to Obama's campaigns.
Michelle Obama was hired as an assistant in Daley's office by Valerie Jarrett, Daley's deputy chief of staff in 1991. When Daley appointed Jarrett chairman of the Office of Planning and Development, Michelle became her assistant..
Jarrett is now CEO of the real estate development and management firm, called Habitat, which manages the housing program for the Chicago Housing Authority.
The Commission on Chicago landmarks "is responsible for recommending to the City Council that individual buildings, sites, objects, or entire districts be designated as Chicago Landmarks, thereby providing legal protection," according to the government web site.
Daley appointed Michelle to serve on the Chicago Landmark Commission. The current chairman of the Commission is Daley's former chief of staff, David Mosena.
Mosena was a member of Obama's US Senate Finance Committee in 2004, with other members that included Valerie Jarrett, Tony Rezko, Rita Rezko, and Allison Davis. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, cited by Novak in the Sun-Times on April 23, 2007. Jarrett serves as an advisor to Obama's presidential campaign.
The Illinois Finance Authority was established by Blagojevich in 2004. Its "role is to support the Governor of Illinois' economic development agenda," and "IFA approves about $3 billion in project financing each year," according to the its site.
Rezko business associate, Ali Ata, was appointed to head the Finance Authority. He is now under indictment in a separate criminal case in which Rezko is also charged. On June 30, 2003, Ata contributed $5,000 to Obama's US senate campaign.
On June 13, 2007, the Sun-Times reported that as a state senator, "Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens."
"I am writing in support of the New Kenwood LLC's proposal to build a ninety-seven unit apartment building at 48th and Cottage Grove for senior citizens,'' Obama wrote in October 28, 1998 letters to both city and state housing officials. "This project will provide much needed housing for Fourth Ward citizens.''
New Kenwood was set up as another "minority owned" company, where Davis owned 51% and Rezko 49%.
In the Times, Novak reported that the deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and Davis, while Obama was still working at the Davis law firm, for a bid on a project that was "four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district."
Although the law firm represented several companies owned by Davis and Rezko when Obama wrote the letters, the firm did not represent New Kenwood in the deal. According to the Sun-Times, Davis and Rezko instead hired a firm owned by Mayor Daley's brother Michael, "to help them get $3.1 million from bonds issued by the city of Chicago."
"In addition to the development fees, a separate Davis-owned company stood to make another $900,000 through federal tax credits," Novak reported in the June 13, 2007 Sun-Times.
you have posted an inventory of half truths, outright lies and speculations that have evidently been loaded into your word processor with the same shovel you use to clean the stable and quite clearly for use with the same material.
This load of shit isn't even worthy of dissecting with corrections. I can, however, see how you have come to be a propagandist Clintonista.
by
John Sanchez Jr. (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 1012 comments)
on Friday, April 4, 2008 at 4:22:13 PM
Tracing the trail of Iraqi born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi indicates Rezko's deals may include a money trail leading back to Saddam Hussein oil for food program.
A 2004 Pentagon report described Auchi, "who, behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein's principal international financial manipulator and bag man." Auchi prospered in Saddam's regime collecting "commissions" on sale of weapons and other goods to Iraq in the 1980s and 1990s.
A recent Pentagon report accuses Auchi of "unlawful activities working closely with Iraqi intelligence operatives to ... arrange for significant theft from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program to smuggle weapons and dual-use technology into Iraq," and to "organize an elaborate scheme to take over and control the post-war cellular phone system in Iraq."
At Saddam's insistence a scheme orchestrated by Auchi appropriated billions of dollars from America through America's Oil for Food program into Auchi's bank account. These transactions passed through Banque Nationale de (BNP) from its 1995 inception until 2001 through Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings Company (GMHC) which was the largest private shareholder in Paris. Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings has connections in Iraq which lead right back to Tony Rezko.
Auchi's company helped finance a 250 megawatt power plant in the Kurdish town of Chamchamal, Iraq, teaming up with Rezko and Iraq's former Minister of Electricity, Aiham Alsamarrae. In December, 2006 Alsamarrae was accused of graft and is being charged in a $2 billion Iraqi reconstruction corruption case. Alsamarrae is a Chicago resident with dual US-Iraqi citizenship -an embarrassing connection for the war critic Obama. Alsamarrae is now living in his Chicago mansion.
Writing in Human Events, March 3, 2008, John Batchelor reports on an Alsammarae-Obama-Rezko connection: "...in April 2005, one month before Mr. Alsammarae left his post, his Ministry of Electricity signed a contract for $50 million with Companion Security to provide training to Iraqis to guard electrical plants by flying them to Illinois for classes.
"Companion Security was headed by a former Chicago policeman with a troubled history, Daniel T. Frawley, in partnership with Mr. Rezko and in association with Daniel Mahru, the lawyer for the original contract and Mr. Rezko's former business partner. In April 2006, Mr. Frawley entered negotiations with Governor Rod Blagojevich's staff to lease a military facility in Illinois to be a training camp. In August 2006, Mr. Frawley started negotiations with Mr. Obama's U.S. Senate staff to complete the contract....
"The timeline of Companion discussions in 2006 is important to note: April 2006 Frawley speaks to governor's office; August 2006 Frawley speaks to senator's office; October 2006 indictment of Rezko revealed; October 2006 Rezko arrested upon return from Syria; October 2006 Alsammarae convicted in Baghdad and makes his first escape attempt; December 2006 Alsammarae escapes from Baghdad. ..."(In 2004) Mr. Auchi traveled by private aircraft to Midway Airport in Chicago and then to a fete at the Four Season Hotel, where he met with his business partner in Chicago real estate, Mr. Rezko, as well as with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Also present that night, according to a fresh report by James Bone and Dominic Kennedy of the London Times, was State Senator Barack Obama, who had recently won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat...."
The Obama Connection
Recently the London Times reported that Auchi had been a business partner of Rezko since 2003 and between April 2005 and 2007 loaned Rezko at least $18 million. On February 1 the London Times reports uncovering, "state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to (an) Obama fundraiser in May 2005. Fintrade's directors include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr. Auchi's wife." "A company related to Mr. Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr. Obama's bagman Antoin 'Tony' Rezko on May, 23 2005. Mr. Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.
These Funds from Auchi's loan helped finance a complex series of transactions between Rezko and Democratic Presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama involving the 2005 purchase of Obama's Chicago mansion and Rezko's purchase of an adjoining landlocked parcel.Rezko claims he paid "full market price" and Obama apparently received a "discount" of several hundred thousand dollars for his parcel. Rezko then improved his parcel to benefit Obama.Instead of handing cash to Obama, Rezko handed Obama a preferential price for property.
This is the same form of "honest graft" and preferential treatment that sent former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to jail over 30 years ago, see United States v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124 (7th Cir. 1974).The Chicago Sun-Times recently reported that Mr. Rezko, around the same general period he was wheeling with Obama, also provided a preferential price for a property purchase by U. S. Representative Luis Gutierrez.
Instead of transferring cash to buy influence, Rezko was engaging in structured property transactions and preferential treatment of public officials to confer significant financial benefits on them, far above the legal limits of any legitimate political contribution permitted by federal law.
Rezko was a key early-money fund raiser in Obama's state Senate campaigns. and Rezko's relationship with Barack Obama goes back to at least 1990, when Obama's law firm did work relating to a Rezko housing development. Rezko as a major mob figure is not known for civic-mindedness or desire for good government.
At a March 3 news conference in San Antonio, Texas, Chicago-based reporters peppered Obama with some of the questions the national news corps has avoided for over a year. Obama claims he had already answered the questions in the Chicago media. He said: "These requests, I think, could just go on forever. At some point, what we need to try to do is respond to what's pertinent."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote:"Reporters, however, had a different idea of what was pertinent, and the questions about Rezko, NAFTA and other unpleasant subjects continued to come. An aide called out 'last question,' and Obama made his move for the exit -- only for reporters to shout after him in protest. 'C'mon, guys,' he pleaded. 'I just answered, like, eight questions.'"Sources: Barack Obama, Tony Rezko,
