According to the indictment, Davis admitted to Rosenberg that Rezko, and Blagojevich's top fund raiser, Christopher Kelly, or Co-Schemer B, had asked Davis who could raise funds for Blagojevich from the state pension system and he volunteered Rosenberg's name.
During his testimony on April 1, 2008, Levine explained that he was already mad at Rosenberg because he expected $500,000 for help he gave Rosenberg in getting the TRS board to approve a $100 million deal in 2001, but he never came through with the money.
The only benefit Levine received from the deal was that Rosenberg said Levine no longer had to pay him $50,000 a year for lobbying efforts, according to the monitoring by Gavel-to-Gavel.
However, all hell broke lose when Rosenberg refused pay the $1.5 million. During the trial, prosecutors played tapes of phone calls in which comical conversations were discussed between the bipartisan group of Co-Schemers and Individuals, as they were trying to figure out how to deal with Rosenberg and his threats.
The jury heard conversations between Republican power broker, William Cellini, or Co-Schemer A, and Levine, in which they said Rosenberg was threatening to "stand at State and Madison," and make public the attempt to extort money for Blagojevich's campaign and that he would "take them all down," and even threatened to go to the Feds.
They claimed Rosenberg said he considered Rezko and Christopher Kelly the two most likely members of Blagojevich's inner circle to end up in prison someday, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Kelly has been charged in a separate case with hiding $1.3 million from the IRS and using money from his business to pay gambling debts with Chicago bookies and Las Vegas casinos.
Levine testified that Rezko wanted things to settle down and quoted Rezko saying, "Mr. Rosenberg was a dangerous individual, and nobody wanted to be put in a dangerous situation."
Levine said Rezko told him that TRS should grant Capri the $220 million. "But, in fact, that should be the last business that Mr. Rosenberg does with the State of Illinois," Levine recalled Rezko telling him, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Levine testified that Rezko said Blagojevich had been briefed on the plan and agreed with it.
During his testimony, Levine also told the jury that Rezko had plans for Blagojevich to run for President. "He said that he had raised a great deal of money for Gov. Blagojevich and that he had great hopes and expectations that Gov. Blagojevich would run for president," Levine told the jury.
"And although he knew it was a long shot, he was working toward that end," Levine said.
He also told the jury about an October 29, 2003, trip in a plane he chartered to carry Blagojevich and others to fundraisers in New York, during which Levine thanked Blagojevich for reappointing him to the Planning board and said the governor told him, "Never discuss any state board with me, discuss them with either Tony Rezko or Chris Kelly."
The TRS part of the story has many subplots. For instance, in 2005, the Feds issued a subpoena to the TRS for records pertaining to a $150 million deal approved for the Carlyle Group, in which Robert Kjellander, or Individual K, described in the August 11, 2005 Sun-Times as the "national Republican Party treasurer," and "a Springfield lobbyist with close ties to the White House," was to be paid a $4.5 million fee.
The most famous investor in the Carlyle Group is the family of Osama bin Laden, and its most famous advisor is the first President George Bush. On October 26, 2001, the New York Times reported that the "Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its financial ties with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for its connections to influential Washington political figures."
"It came largely as a result of public controversy about the family's stake in a Carlyle fund that invests in buyouts of military and aerospace companies," a Carlyle executive told the Times.
After the September 11 attacks, the Times noted, "the investment was criticized amid speculation that the family might profit from increased military spending from America's war on terrorism."
Kjellander reportedly headed Bush's reelection campaign in three states and in December 2003, he was able to obtain an invitation from the Bush administration for Levine, Rezko, and Cellini, along with their wives, to attend a Christmas Party at the White House.
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, 1019 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,
