Chicago Tribune endorses Emanuel, Tribune staff on drugs?, John Kass of Tribune slammed Obama and Emanuel
“Why has Obama, for over 2 years, employed numerous private and government attorneys to avoid presenting a legitimate birth certificate and college records?”…Citizen Wells and millions of concerned Americans
“Why did the Illinois Senate Health & Human Services Committee, with Obama as chairman, create and push Bill 1332, “Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act,” early in 2003, which reduced the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, just prior to rigging by Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich?”…Citizen Wells
The Chicago Tribune has just endorsed Rahm Emanuel for mayor of Chicago. Does that surprise anyone? No. Emanuel becoming mayor will strengthen the hold on Chicago that corruption has had for years and continue to provide the Obama thugs a base of operations.
From the Chicago Tribune February 4, 2011.
“The next mayor probably has a short window in which he or she can make agonizing choices and halt Chicago’s downward financial spiral. Standing in the way — some in pinstripes, others in blue collars — will be powerful beneficiaries of the status quo.
The skills and the will
This is a formidable moment. Chicagoans can best negotiate it by placing their faith in Rahm Emanuel and his ethos of dogged effectiveness. No other candidate combines Emanuel’s candor about the threats facing Chicago with the will to take necessary steps — some of them unpopular — to tame those threats.
Specifically: We’re hugely impressed by Emanuel’s forthrightness about the overarching crisis in city finances. He alone is frank about the immediate need to reform a pension system that otherwise will implode on city retirees and everyday taxpayers alike.
Emanuel offers Chicagoans a skill set, and eclectic expertise in national and global policy realms, that are extraordinary for a mayoral candidate. He is among the most able practitioners in American politics and governance. Two U.S. presidents have recognized that, entrusting him with senior leadership positions, embracing his advice and dispatching him to turn ideas into outcomes.
He has an immense network in government and politics that he can use to lure the best minds in Chicago and around the country to the task of building an even more vital city.
He knows what it will take to keep Chicago competitive in a global marketplace, to drive a school system built on competition and innovation, to protect the citizens of the city, and to shed the legacy of a government where political favoritism endures. The Tribune today endorses Rahm Emanuel for mayor.
Miguel del Valle and Carol Moseley Braun bring strengths to this race. We especially admire the independence and high ethical standard del Valle has set throughout his public career.
But it was the other major player in this crowded field, Gery Chico, who made this decision difficult. It’s rare to have two competing candidates who could do this job so well. Chico, too, has a record of effectiveness in government, particularly during his tenure as head of the Chicago Public Schools board during the first, groundbreaking wave of education reform.
Chico, though, is largely a product of Chicago government. He has built a successful career in law and public service via his hard-earned clout at City Hall. We do not see Chico as the candidate likeliest to disrupt a status quo of which he is such an integral part. That is the realpolitik reason why public employees unions have been gravitating toward Chico. And without disruption, this municipal enterprise is doomed.
What Clinton and Obama saw
Who would influence a Mayor Emanuel, in the way that Bridgeport friends and generous developers have influenced Mayor Richard M. Daley? By force of intellect and personality, Emanuel surely would co-opt others. It’s fair for Chicagoans to ask who would try to co-opt him. Consider:
Much attention has focused on the large number of companies that have employed Chico’s law firm and won business from city government. A different crowd could try to make demands of Emanuel: wealthy donors who have funded his campaigns. We hope those connections aren’t behind his vagueness over whether he, like the other major candidates, would block the Chicago Children’s Museum or any other institution from a land-grab in Grant Park.
That said, we think Emanuel embodies a healthy blend of tactical shrewdness, ethical conduct and inexhaustible energy. Emanuel could not let himself fail. He is among the most results-driven people to walk this Earth. That might mean more expletives fly and more fish corpses arrive by ground mail. But if Chicago emerges from an Emanuel mayoralty with its finances stabilized, its job market thriving, its schools improving and its middle class intact, his successes once again will have eclipsed his excesses.
Given all the enemies an effective mayor will have to make, he could be one term and done. But what a term it would be. We hope that, between now and Feb. 22, Chicago voters reach the same conclusion as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did when they brought him to the White House: This guy deserves a chance to get this near-impossible job done.”
From John Kass of the Chicago Tribune November 18, 2010.
“White House Bare-knuckle strategy to douse residency questions harkens to Obama’s 1996 state Senate race”
“Rahm Emanuel’s campaign demanded Wednesday that his opponents condemn efforts to challenge his candidacy and knock him off the Chicago mayoral ballot.
“News reports indicate that political operatives are organizing an attempt to limit the choices of Chicago voters in the mayoral election,” Emanuel spokesman Ben LaBolt told reporters about my Wednesday column.
That column detailed the coming legal challenges to Rahm’s candidacy. These include the fact — confirmed by all sides now — that while he lived in Washington, Emanuel was twice purged from the Chicago voter rolls yet was allowed to vote absentee even though he wasn’t living at his old North Side address.
How this was done may be explained any day now, as election law expert Burt Odelson is expected to challenge Rahm’s candidacy before the city elections board.
Naturally, the Emanuel campaign put its own spin on things.
“Every mayoral candidate has an obligation to state whether they are involved in this effort,” LaBolt said. “If they’re not involved, they have an obligation to publicly condemn it.”
That’s an admirable strategy by an able public relations guy. And I’m in agreement that Rahm is a Chicagoan and should be allowed to run for mayor. But then, there’s that irritating law, which says in order to run for mayor, a candidate must live in the city a year before the election.
Yet this highly principled demand from the Rahministas, about condemning political operators who seek to limit the choices of the voters, reminds me of a guy.
He’s a famous Chicago politician, known across the world. And he, too, used bare-knuckle tactics before the Chicago election board to knock his opponents off the primary ballot.
He not only knocked off his main rival. By the time he was done, this politician knocked all of them off — The Chicago Way.
And “voter choice”? Are you kidding? After this guy was through, voters had no choice at all. He was the only one left on the ballot.
This candidate’s name?
Barack Obama.
Yes, the very same fellow who is now president of the United States and was, until quite recently, the boss to both Emanuel and LaBolt in Washington.
In the 1996 Democratic primary campaign for the Illinois Senate, Obama used every trick in the book before the election board to get rid of his four opponents.
He didn’t challenge their residency. Instead, Obama challenged their petitions of candidacy. And years later, as he campaigned for the presidency, he was billed as a reformer, not some old-school Chicago pol.”
Tony Rezko sentencing October 21, 2011, Blagojevich trial witness?, Rezko Blagojevich Obama board rigging
“Why has Obama, for over 2 years, employed numerous private and government attorneys to avoid presenting a legitimate birth certificate and college records?”…Citizen Wells and millions of concerned Americans
“Why did the Illinois Senate Health & Human Services Committee, with Obama as chairman, create and push Bill 1332, “Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act,” early in 2003, which reduced the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, just prior to rigging by Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich?”…Citizen Wells
From the Chicago Tribune January 28, 2011.
“A federal judge has set a new sentencing date for a convicted influence peddler and one-time fundraiser for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Judge Amy St. Eve told attorneys at a hearing Friday that she’ll sentence Tony Rezko on Oct. 21.
Rezko’s attorneys and prosecutors had asked the judge earlier to delay Rezko’s sentencing to allow for the possibility he could testify at two upcoming trials, including Blagojevich’s corruption retrial in April.
At Friday’s hearing, the defense also argued in favor of a new trial for Rezko based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling scaling back so-called honest services laws.”
Rahm Emanuel ineligible, Cook County Appeals Court reversal, Residency requirement, One down one to go
From the Chicago Tribune January 24, 2011.
“Rahm Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot, according to a ruling issued by a state appellate court today.
At a news conference, Emanuel said he would appeal the decision to the Illinois Supreme Court and ask the state’s highest court for an injunction so that his name will appear on the mayoral ballot.
“I have no doubt at the end we’ll prevail in this effort,” Emanuel said. “We’ll now go to the next level to get clarity.”
“I still own a home here, (I) look forward to moving into it one day, vote from here, pay property taxes here. I do believe the people of the city of Chicago deserve a right to make a decision about who they want to be their next mayor,” Emanuel said.
In a 2-1 ruling, the appellate panel said Emanuel does not meet the residency requirement of having lived in Chicago for a year prior to the election. The judges reversed a decision by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which had unanimously agreed that Emanuel was eligible to run for mayor.
“We conclude that the candidate neither meets the Municipal Code’s requirement that he have ‘resided in’ Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement,” the majority judges wrote. “Accordingly, we disagree with the Board’s conclusion that he is eligible to run for the office of Mayor of the City of Chicago. We reverse the circuit court’s judgment confirming the Board’s decision, set aside the Board’s decision and … order that the candidate’s name be excluded (or, if necessary, removed) from the ballot.”
The majority opinion was written by Appellate Justice Thomas E. Hoffman and concurred with by Presiding Appellate Justice Shelvin Louise Marie Hall.
Appellate Justice Bertina E. Lampkin wrote a dissenting opinion.”
“WALTER P. MAKSYM and THOMAS L.
McMAHON,
Petitioners-Appellants,
v.
THE BOARD OF ELECTION
COMMISSIONERS OF THE CITY OF
CHICAGO, et al.,
(RAHM EMANUEL,
Respondent-Appellee).”
“JUSTICE HOFFMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with
opinion.
Presiding Justice Hall concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Justice Lampkin dissented, with opinion.”
“Subsection 3.1-10-5(a) of the Municipal Code sets forth two
qualifications for candidates: it states that a candidate must be
“a qualified elector of the municipality and [must have] resided in
the municipality at least one year next preceding the election.”
65 ILCS 5/3.1-10-5(a) (West 2008). These two qualifications are
stated separately and in the conjunctive.”
“As we have observed, the “reside in” requirement is stated
separately from, and in addition to, the requirement that he be a
qualified elector of Chicago in order to be a candidate for
municipal office. The fact that the two requirements are stated
separately and in the conjunctive leads to the inference that the
legislature intended that they be considered separately from, and
in addition to, each other.”
“Based on the foregoing analysis, we conclude that, under
subsection 3.1-10-5(a) of the Municipal Code, a candidate must meet
not only the Election Code’s voter residency standard, but also
must have actually resided within the municipality for one year
prior to the election, a qualification that the candidate
unquestionably does not satisfy. Because the candidate does not
satisfy that standard, he may be eligible for inclusion on the
ballot only if he is somehow exempt from the Municipal Code’s
“reside in” requirement.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the candidate
neither meets the Municipal Code’s requirement that he have
“resided in” Chicago for the year preceding the election in which
he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the
requirement. Accordingly, we disagree with the Board’s conclusion
that he is eligible to run for the office of Mayor of the City of
Chicago. We reverse the circuit court’s judgment confirming the
Board’s decision, set aside the Board’s decision, and, pursuant to
Supreme Court Rule 366(a)(5) (Ill. Sup. Ct. R. 366(a)(5) (eff. Feb.
1, 1994)), order that the candidate’s name be excluded (or, if
necessary, removed) from the ballot for the February 22, 2011,
Chicago mayoral election.
Reversed.”
Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune, Because a Constitutional crisis is just what this nation needs right now
“Why has Obama, for over 2 years, employed numerous private and government attorneys to avoid presenting a legitimate birth certificate and college records?”…Citizen Wells and millions of concerned Americans
When I heard Glenn Beck insult millions of concerned Americans and military officers on his radio show, I thought that was one of the most insensitive, stupidest things I had ever heard. Is Eric Zorn related to Glenn Beck? Do they both have the stupid gene?
From Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune November 24, 2010.
“Because a Constitutional crisis is just what this nation needs right now”
“And since one must be a “natural-born citizen” to be president and Barack Obama’s father was not, as everyone acknowledges, a U.S. citizen, the whackjobs who have been unsuccessful in their “he was born in Kenya!” effort, are now hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will help in their cause to declare him ineligible to hold office.”
On the one hand, for a micro second, I want to congratulate Zorn for mentioning the Kerchner v Obama lawsuit being before the Supreme Court. But that feeling quickly evaporates when I digest the way he dismissed those questioning Obama as being “whackjobs.” He displays a total lack of understanding about Obama’s eligibility issues and the Kerchner case.
First of all, we don’t know where in the hell Obama was born, since he has avoided presenting a legitimate birth certificate. Secondly, Zorn has got some nerve calling a retired naval commander, LTC Terry Lakin, multiple generals and millions of concerned Americans “whackjobs.”
Eric Zorn, we have a constitutional crisis now, due to people like you in the media not doing your journalistic job.
Eric Zorn, call me. Get your facts straight before making an ass out of yourself.
Obama style Chicago politics, Like Barack, like Rahm: Ballot tactics ring familiar, John Kass
John Kass of the Chicago Tribune has been telling it like it is for years.
November 18, 2010.
“White House Bare-knuckle strategy to douse residency questions harkens to Obama’s 1996 state Senate race”
“Rahm Emanuel’s campaign demanded Wednesday that his opponents condemn efforts to challenge his candidacy and knock him off the Chicago mayoral ballot.
“News reports indicate that political operatives are organizing an attempt to limit the choices of Chicago voters in the mayoral election,” Emanuel spokesman Ben LaBolt told reporters about my Wednesday column.
That column detailed the coming legal challenges to Rahm’s candidacy. These include the fact — confirmed by all sides now — that while he lived in Washington, Emanuel was twice purged from the Chicago voter rolls yet was allowed to vote absentee even though he wasn’t living at his old North Side address.
How this was done may be explained any day now, as election law expert Burt Odelson is expected to challenge Rahm’s candidacy before the city elections board.
Naturally, the Emanuel campaign put its own spin on things.
“Every mayoral candidate has an obligation to state whether they are involved in this effort,” LaBolt said. “If they’re not involved, they have an obligation to publicly condemn it.”
That’s an admirable strategy by an able public relations guy. And I’m in agreement that Rahm is a Chicagoan and should be allowed to run for mayor. But then, there’s that irritating law, which says in order to run for mayor, a candidate must live in the city a year before the election.
Yet this highly principled demand from the Rahministas, about condemning political operators who seek to limit the choices of the voters, reminds me of a guy.
He’s a famous Chicago politician, known across the world. And he, too, used bare-knuckle tactics before the Chicago election board to knock his opponents off the primary ballot.
He not only knocked off his main rival. By the time he was done, this politician knocked all of them off — The Chicago Way.
And “voter choice”? Are you kidding? After this guy was through, voters had no choice at all. He was the only one left on the ballot.
This candidate’s name?
Barack Obama.
Yes, the very same fellow who is now president of the United States and was, until quite recently, the boss to both Emanuel and LaBolt in Washington.
In the 1996 Democratic primary campaign for the Illinois Senate, Obama used every trick in the book before the election board to get rid of his four opponents.
He didn’t challenge their residency. Instead, Obama challenged their petitions of candidacy. And years later, as he campaigned for the presidency, he was billed as a reformer, not some old-school Chicago pol.”
William Cellini Obama Rezko Levine, et al, All searches lead back to Obama and Rezko
I was following up on news on Obama corruption cronies in Chicago and Illinois and the Blaogojevich trial saga and came across an article that was probably much unnoticed.
From John Kass of the Chicago Tribune August 13, 2010.
“Cellini, 75, a Republican boss, was once Democrat Blagojevich’s co-defendant in the corruption case known as Operation Board Games. And who says the bipartisan Illinois Combine doesn’t exist?
Cellini has been a hobby of mine for years. And although Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak has done excellent work on Cellini’s deals, Cellini has mostly flown under the media radar.
In 2008, Cellini was indicted on federal charges that he conspired with convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko and others to shake down Hollywood movie producer Thomas Rosenberg for $1.5 million in campaign cash for Blagojevich.
Since Blagojevich was arrested, Cellini’s volcano has been dormant. A trial date has not been set. If Blagojevich ends up with a hung jury and the case is retried and drags out for years, Cellini might turn 80 by the time of his trial, if ever.”
“Whether there will actually be a Cellini trial is an open question. If the Blagojevich case withers and dies, the Combine will ask its mouthpieces to call for the head of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. It’s been alleged that they already tried to get rid of Fitzgerald during the Bush administration.
Cellini made friends in all the high places. Yet federal tape recordings previously introduced in court show that he’s a guy who likes to lie low.
In a phone call recorded by the FBI on May 7, 2004, Cellini was reporting back to a fellow Republican, the since-convicted Stuart Levine. They were talking about the alleged shakedown of Rosenberg, who was threatening to go to the feds.”
From the Chicago Tribune November 16, 2008 reported on Citizen Wells April 29, 2010.
“Connections could touch every somebody”
“To fully appreciate our politics you’ve got to look at the connections. Sadly, this task is beyond the national press and some locals besotted with our renowned vintage, Combine Kool Aid.
But you readers have the mental agility to follow along.
So as U.S. District Judge James Zagel accepted the not guilty plea, Cellini stood with his defense lawyer, Dan Webb.
“I had a glass of beer last night,” Cellini told Zagel, saying he had no problem following the court proceedings. The three talked as if they knew each other well. They do.
Cellini is accused of helping shake down a Hollywood producer and politically connected Chicago investor Thomas Rosenberg for $1.5 million in campaign cash for Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Cellini also is accused as a point man in a plot to remove U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald as federal prosecutor.”
“Cellini really began to pile up the cash when then-Gov. Thompson gave him a state gaming license. Webb and Zagel were young prosecutors under then-U.S. Atty. Thompson. Later, Zagel was director of the state’s Department of Revenue under Thompson. Webb ran the State Police.
Everybody knows somebody. So, no, Illinois politics isn’t a Robert Ludlum novel.
Illinois is Six Degrees of Bill Cellini.”
“The Combine wants Fitzgerald promoted out of town. But President-elect Barack Obama has promised newspaper editorial boards he would keep Fitzgerald in Chicago to fight political corruption.
That’s the same President-elect Obama with Mayor Daley’s guy Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and another Daley guy, David Axelrod, as Obama’s chief strategist. The mayor’s brother Billy is one of Obama’s chief economic advisers. Whew!
Some political analysts become quite upset when “Daley machine” and “Obama” are mentioned in my column. They feel compelled to give me a vigorous corrective. But this same Flat Earth society denied the existence of a Combine for years, then shut up for a while when Obama’s real estate fairy Tony Rezko was convicted in the federal government’s Operation Board Games probe.”
(Note the highlighted areas) Obama’s role in rigging the Health Planning Facilities Board
Evelyn Pringle, Obama Curtain Time 2
“Obama was chairman of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee in January 2003. A few articles in the media have mentioned that Obama sat on a committee that reviewed matters related to the Planning Board in conjunction with the Governor’s staff but none have discussed his integral part in getting the bill passed.
A review of senate records from January 2003 to August 2003, shows Obama played a major role as chairman of that committee, in pushing through Senate Bill 1332, that led to the “Illinois Health Facilities Planning Act,” which reduced the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, making the votes much easier to rig.
Democratic Senator Susan Garrett sponsored the bill in the senate, and the chief co-sponsor was Republican Senator Dale Righter. These two senators were also on the Human Services Committee with Obama.
The bill was filed with the senate secretary on February 20, 2003, and assigned to Human Services Committee for review on February 27. Less than a month later, as chairman, Obama sent word that the bill should be passed on March 13, 2003.
On May 31, 2003, the House and Senate passed the bill and the only senator listed in the “yes” votes mentioned in the Board Games indictments is Obama.
Blagojevich made the effective date June 27, 2003, and the co-schemers already had the people lined up to stack the Board and rig the votes with full approval from Obama.
As discussed fully in Curtain Time for Obama Part 1, the Republicans and Democrats worked together in setting up the Planning Board scheme because the Combine as a whole would profit.
(Citizen Wells Note – Cellini reference)
During the trial, Stuart Levine testified that when he sought reappointment to the Planning Board, he told Republican co-schemer, Bill Cellini, to tell the Blagojevich administration he would vote however they wanted when approving projects.
He told the jury he had the same understanding with the two prior Republican governors, Jim Edgar, and George Ryan, who is now sitting in prison due to Fitzgerald’s successful prosecution of a corruption case against him.
A June 2003 email exchange produced in the trial shows Obama was one of eight officials who received the names of the nominees for the new Board ahead of time, from the office of David Wilhelm, who headed Blagojevich’s 2002 campaign for governor.
Tony Rezko’s name does not appear in the email. In fact, his attorney made the point to the jury that the exchange was from Blagojevich’s general counsel, Susan Lichtenstein, and Wilhelm’s office, and indicated the appointees were recommended by Wilhelm and supported by those who received the memo.
The memo said, “we worked closely over the past six months” with eight officials including three state senators.
Jennifer Thomas, a former aide in Blagojevich’s patronage office, testified that she attended regular weekly meetings at Rezko’s office between the spring of 2003 and November 2004, and Rezko floated names and specifically said Levine should be reappointed to the new Board.
The Senate bill said, the “Board shall be appointed by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate.” But the Senate Confirmation Hearings were a joke. For instance, the Feds recorded Levine talking to co-schemer, Jon Bauman, the day Levine learned he was approved by the Senate from the executive secretary of the Board.
Levine told Bauman he ran into Jeffrey Marks, who said “congratulations on your appointment,” and Levine asked for what. Marks said, “well the Senate Confirmation Hearings on Health Facility Plan Board members.”
He told Levine Senate President, Emil Jones, only allowed 2 members to be approved and “that was you and the other person he just put in.”
“Isn’t that hysterical ’cause you know they had this big battle going on,” Levine told Bauman.
Laughing away, Levine said, “don’t you just love it.”
“I’m one of those independents and not part of the block.”
“Well, good, you know it’s good to be just a true independent civil servant,” Bauman said laughing along with Levine.
“Is, is that a good thing,” Levine replied, “I’ve never been that.”
Corrupt appointees fund Obama and Blagojevich campaigns
The corrupt new appointees were all contributors to the presidential hopeful, Blagojevich, and the US senate hopeful Obama.
The previous Act allowed the Board itself to select a “Chairman and other officers as deemed necessary.” But the new law stated: “The Governor shall designate one of the members to serve as Chairman and shall name as full-time Executive Secretary.”
The Board’s then sitting-chairman, Thomas Beck, who was originally appointed by a Republican governor, testified under a grant of immunity that he brought a $1,000 check to Rezko on July 15, 2003, to make sure Blagojevich reappointed him.
A few weeks later, Beck said, Rezko called to say he would be reappointed along with a Republican holdover Levine. Beck also testified that Rezko told him Blagojevich was set to appoint Rezko’s three doctor friends to complete the rigged voting bloc. He said he met the doctors in August 2003, at the first meeting of the new Board.
Dr Michel Malek gave Obama $10,000 a little over a month before the first meeting on June 30, 2003. He also donated $25,000 to Blagojevich three weeks later on July 25, 2003, and gave Obama another $500 in September 2003. Malek was an investor in Riverside Park.
Dr Fortunee Massuda donated $25,000 to Blagojevich on July 25, 2003, and gave a total of $2,000 to Obama on different dates. Massuda’s husband, Charles Hannon, is a co-schemer in the pension fund case and testified against Rezko in the trial.
Dr Imad Almanaseer contributed a total of $3,000 to Obama after he landed the appointment. On March 13, 2008, Almanaseer testified against Rezko and told the jury he was an investor in Rezko’s fast-food businesses.
This doctor’s son, Ahmed Almanaseer, was given a trade office intern position with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Ahmed is president of HireIraqis.com a bilingual human resources “site aimed at linking Iraqi job seekers with the companies engaged in the reconstruction [in Iraq] efforts,” according to Rezko Watch/RBO.”
Blagojevich trial update, Judge James Zagel refuses to throw out conviction
From the Chicago Tribune October 27, 2010.
“A federal judge on Wednesday refused to throw out former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s lone conviction from his trial last summer.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel rejected the defense contention that prosecutors brought an overly complicated case that confused the jury and then damaged Blagojevich’s right to defend himself by limiting his lawyers at every turn.
The jury convicted Blagojevich of a single count of lying to the FBI but deadlocked on all 23 other counts. He is set to be retried on those charges April 20.
Blagojevich’s lawyers had maintained that a “plethora of errors” at trial had led to the lone conviction. Blagojevich’s “fundamental right to defend himself through cross-examination was stomped upon by obstructionist (and continuous) objections that were sustained by the court,” the defense wrote.
But Zagel’s two-page opinion concluded that the defense tactics showed it didn’t have a legal leg to stand on.”
Blagojevich trial delayed, Retrial April 2011, Chicago Tribune feedback
From the Chicago Tribune.
“A federal judge agreed Friday to delay former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s retrial until April to give his defense team — down to just two lawyers — more time to prepare.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who had tentatively planned for the retrial to begin in early January, postponed its start until April 20.
Prosecutors objected to the delay, pointing out that Blagojevich’s two remaining attorneys took part in the first trial. “The faulty premise is that they are starting from scratch,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid Schar.
But the defense said the two will have to take on much heavier roles in the retrial.”
“Those of us who work for the Chicago Tribune speak with our readers every day. That conversation survives on our credibility and your trust. We understand the humbling truth that neither of those is assured.
Today we need to talk with you about painful developments that have threatened that credibility, that trust.
On Oct. 6, The New York Times reported that the Tribune Co. had been engulfed by “a culture run amok.””
“Much of the New York Times story was disturbing, but one passage particularly troubled us: It called into question the independence of the newsroom and this editorial board.
In June 2008, according to the story, Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell approached then-Editor Ann Marie Lipinski at a meeting, “saying that the Chicago Tribune should be harder on Gov. Rod Blagojevich. … In a news meeting later the same day, she found out that Mr. Zell was in negotiations to sell Wrigley Field to the state sports authority.” Lipinski says, “It was hard to avoid the conclusion that he was trying to use the newspaper to put pressure on Blagojevich.””
“Blagojevich was arrested in December 2008. Among the charges: that he sought to pressure Tribune Co. to fire members of the Chicago Tribune editorial board. Tribune editorials had been discussing the governor’s removal from office since October 2007. At the time of his arrest, the Tribune reported that negotiations on Wrigley Field had resumed shortly after the company had rejected the state’s offer.”
“Zell has denied that he sought to use the newspaper for business purposes. No one from the editorial board was present for the conversation between Zell and Lipinski. We can, however, say with certainty that Tribune Co. executives — from Zell on down — have never tried to influence this editorial board. Their approach has been completely hands-off. Completely. They have had no impact whatsoever on our Blagojevich editorials. We realize that we cannot prove a negative. All we can do is tell you the truth and ask you to believe us.”
The Chicago Tribune has done a decent and sometimes excellent job of covering Rod Blagojevich. They can be faulted, along with the rest of the mainstream media for not covering the complete Obama stories.
Blagojevich trial, Retrial hearing, October 22, 2010
The Chicago Tribune reports.
“Prosecutors and defense attorneys are scheduled to appear in federal court as the sides prepare for retrial in the corruption case against ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Friday’s status hearing comes a week after prosecutors filed a response to defense claims that multiple legal errors led to Blagojevich’s conviction for lying to the FBI.
The government countered that it was overwhelming evidence that led to the conviction in the first trial and that allegations of prosecutorial misconduct are baseless.”
“A former business partner of convicted influence-peddler Antoin “Tony” Rezko was sentenced to three years of probation Tuesday for his role in a bank fraud scheme over the sale of Rezko’s pizza restaurants.
Abdelhamid “Al” Chaib had pleaded guilty to a single count of obstructing the Internal Revenue Service for his role in securing a $2.6 million loan from GE Capital Corp. to finance his bogus purchase of Rezko’s string of Papa John’s pizza franchises. The loan was in fact a scheme to obtain loan money to prop up Rezko’s businesses while Chaib would have no meaningful ownership of the pizzerias.”
Now for the rest of the story. Once again I would like to thank Evelyn Pringle for the fine work that she did early on to expose the truth about Obama. The highlighting is mine.
As you read the following, remember that it was written in mid 2008.
“Curtain Time for Barack Obama – Part 4 (Mansion Deal)”
“The solution to the problems arising from the unsuccessful attempts to shut down Operation Board Games would be for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to become president and issue a bipartisan pardon to all members of the “Combine” who funded his seat in the US Senate. The scam worked when Scooter Libby took the fall for the Bush administration.”
“Rezko-Obama Real Estate Deal
When Obama started setting up the purchase of the $2 million mansion with Tony Rezko in December 2004, he did not know he would be the presidential candidate in 2008. He therefore did not think about the repercussions in a presidential campaign. The Combine’s plan was for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to be the candidate at that point. Operation Board Games put an end to that plan.
Mike McIntire and Christopher Drew tracked Rezko’s “financial maneuverings” during the year that Rezko and Obama were entering into the real estate deals through an examination of lawsuits, documents in the Board Games cases, and land records, for a report in the March 8, 2008 New York Times.
They discovered that Rezko was fighting off lenders and investors trying to collect on defaulted loans and failed ventures the whole time. “But he side-stepped that financial dragnet by arranging for the land to be bought in his wife’s name, making it the only property she owned by herself,” they report.
As a result, when the Obamas bought part of the lot in January 2006, “the money they paid was beyond the reach of Mr. Rezko’s creditors, including one conducting a court-ordered hunt for his assets to recover a $3.5 million debt,” the Times notes.
Obama claims he had no idea Rezko was broke. During his March 14, 2008 Sun-Times interview, he said: “I was shocked – as I think a lot of people in Chicago were shocked – to find out the difficult financial straits he was in because I don’t think anybody suspected that at the time.”
Obama told the Tribune on November 1, 2006, that the lot next door had to be sold separately because, “It was already a stretch to buy the house.” However, affidavits filed in the Rezko case in November 2006, show the Rezkos had no money. Rita’s only income was a $37,000-a-year job when she paid $125,000 in cash and obtained a half a million dollar mortgage at the Mutual Bank to buy the $625,000 lot.
When documents unsealed in the case revealed a $3.5 million loan made to Rezko a month before the real estate deal, the money transfer raised “the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago,” a February 26, 2008 report by James Bone and Dominic Kennedy in the Times of London noted.
Obama claims he got the money because he pulled off a marketing coup for book sales with his speech at the July, 2004 Democratic National Convention and got elected.
“Because of the attention I received during Senate campaign and the convention, my book sold well,” he told Sun-Times in an interview on March 14, 2008. “I came into a sizeable amount of money that allowed us to move,” he said.
The way Obama set up the deal, the mansion and the strip of land were placed in a Land Trust with the Northern Trust Corporation. The price of the mansion was $1.65 million, and Obama came up $330,000 to obtain a $1.32 million mortgage at Northern Trust Bank.
Cook County land records show the deed for the lot to Rita was recorded on June 20, 2005 and she conveyed the land to Northern Trust Company Land Trust #10209, on January 11, 2006. According to a web site for Marquette Bank’s Trust Services, a Land Trust provides shared ownership protection when real estate is owned by more than two people, and divorce, legal disability or the death of one can hinder the sale of the property.
With the establishment of a Land Trust, a judgment against one beneficiary cannot create a lien on real estate held in trust and ordinary legal proceedings against one will not cloud the title, according to Marquette site.
The investigation by the New York Times found that between November 2002 and January 2005, at least 12 lawsuits were filed against Rezko and his businesses, including one by the General Electric Commercial Finance Corp.
In fact, GE obtained a $3.5 million judgment in November 2004, but put off collection in the first half of 2005, while negotiating for payments with Rezko, the Times reports. The lawsuit involves loans Rezko obtained for the sale of Papa John’s pizza parlors.
Papa John’s cancelled its franchise agreement with Rezko in 2004 because he was behind in payments. Rezko then transferred the pizza chains to companies owned by “personal friend(s) and long-time business associate(s),” to operate under trade names such as Papa Tony’s and Pizzeria Zia, according to a lawsuit filed in 2005 by Papa John’s.
Papa John’s alleges Rezko controlled the chains and the associates were running “front” companies. The companies in the lawsuit include AR Pizza, Chaib Investments, Newco Pizza and LayaZia. AR Pizza, Newco Pizza and LayaZia have their principal places of business at the same location as Rezko Enterprises.
Auchi’a firm, General Mediterranean Holding, owns 50% of AR Pizza and Rezko owns 50%. Auchi’’s lawyer told the Times of London the $3.5 million loan to Rezko in May 2005 was to “assist the financial position” of AR Pizza.
His attorney told the New York Times that Rezko was supposed to use the money for his pizza business, and said, “as far as my client is aware, Mr. Rezko used the loan for its intended purpose and not for any other purpose.”
However, the Times review showed Rezko only made a $1 million payment to GE months after he received the loan. GE finally obtained a court order in October 2005 and began seizing even the smallest assets. As the Times explains:
“The company’s lawyers filed a claim against the Rezkos’ home and began issuing subpoenas to banks where Mr. Rezko had accounts, finding very little cash.
“Court records show that G.E. was due to be in court on Jan. 5, 2006, for example, obtaining an order to seize $1,297.39 from one … checking accounts.”
“Less than a week later,” the Times wrote, “Mrs. Rezko sold a 10-foot-wide strip of the empty lot to Mr. Obama, for $104,500.”
Now Obama claims he never knew the lot was in Rita Rezko’s name until he read about it in the media. During his March 14, 2008 interview, the Tribune asked him: “When Tony sold the garden lot in his wife’s name, didn’t that strike you as odd?”
“You know,” he said, “I have no idea why he did it. I don’t think he was intending to hide something, because if he was then, you know, using your wife’s name, Rita Rezko, probably wouldn’t have been the best way to do it.””
“Did he ever explain to you what he was doing?” the Tribune asked.
“No,” Obama replied, “I didn’t discover it until the issue of him purchasing this lot broke through, uh, through you.”
Next trial will focus on pizza parlor schemes
Rezko’s next trial will focus on the fraudulent financial transactions with GE and the mystery of what happened to the missing $3.5 million from the loan made to Rezko the month before the mansion deal may be resolved.
The corruption in this case involves the Illinois Finance Authority. The IFA was established, “to support the Governor of Illinois’ economic development agenda,” and “IFA approves about $3 billion in project financing each year,” according to its web site.
Co-schemer Ali Ata was appointed to lead the IFA. He made a $5,000 donation to Obama on June 30, 2003.
Talat Othman was appointed to the IFA Board, and he donated $1,000 to Obama on June 30, 2003.
David Gustman was made chairman, and his wife, Lisa, also gave Obama $1,000 on June 30.
Co-schemer Abdelhamid Chaib is the former the director of Rezko Concessions. Chaib’s wife was appointed to the Department of Employment Security Review Board. Obama received $5,000 from Chaib on June 30, 2003.
This indictment alleges that Rezko fraudulently caused GE to extend more than $10 million in loans to finance what Rezko portrayed as sales of two different groups of Papa John’’s pizza restaurants in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.
After closing on the loan for the Chicago stores, the loan became delinquent, and Rezko caused additional false financial information to be submitted to GE in asking for forebearance on the default, the indictment says. It also alleges that Rezko defrauded investors by concealing that he was transferring the company’s assets to himself and a straw purchaser.
As part of the scheme, Ata signed a letter on Finance Authority letterhead that falsely made it appear that Dr Paul Ray had applied for financing with the IFA for acquisition of the pizza restaurants. The letter stated that Ray’s financing would be recommended for approval by the IFA Board on March 15, 2004, and that the IFA would guarantee 50% of the total $16 million.
Ray contributed $3,000 to Obama on June 30, 2003. Ray also gave Obama $2,000 on October 2003, on top of a donation of $1,000 on December 31, 2002. Ray was an investor in Riverside Park.
During the Rezko trial, Ata testified that he told Rezko that IFA board members were worried over the approval of financing for the Papa John’s deal because there could be negative publicity due to Rezko’s association with the pizza businesses
But Ata said Rezko scoffed at the concerns. “He said as far as the publicity, he will get the governor’s office to approve the transaction, and as far as the board,” Ata told the jury, Rezko said, “We put them there.”
Rezko eventually called Ata and dictated the language of a letter that said IFA was guaranteeing half of the purchase price. But before the deal could go through, Ata brought the chairman, David Gustman, and the board’s financial advisers to Rezko’s office to tell him they did not believe the financing was good for IFA. Ata said Rezko seemed to agree, but he never gave back the letter Ata wrote on Ray’s behalf.
More Combine members throw in the towel
Testimony in the first trial opened the door to evidence in other Board Game cases and more Combine members threw in the towel. Ali Ata entered into a plea agreement in the GE case a week before the trial was set to end and he was the last witness to testify.
Ata pled guilty to charges that included tax fraud, and lying to the FBI in saying he received nothing in return for $50,000 in contributions to Blagojevich when according to the plea agreement, he did “receive something for those contributions, specifically employment with a state agency … with an annual salary of approximately $127,000.”
According to court filings, Ata also lied when he “intentionally concealed that he paid Rezko approximately $125,000 in cash … during 2003 and 2004 so that he could obtain a state appointment and then ensure its continuation.”
On his last day on the stand, Ata told the jury he finally agreed to cooperate with the Feds after a person delivered a threat to him. He told prosecutors he lied to the FBI because he was encouraged to be a “team player” by people acting on Rezko’’s behalf and when he received a grand jury subpoena in late 2005, people contacted him in an effort to stop him from cooperating.
Ata testified he gave Rezko the money because he wanted to keep his job. He told the jury he used to drop by Rezko’s office and would see other top officials waiting to see Rezko and in order to keep their jobs people had to follow orders and become a team player.
For instance, Ata said, he often saw Kelly King Dibble, a former Rezmar employee, who became director of the Illinois Housing Authority. But when Dibble balked at hiring a Rezko relative, Ata said, Rezko passed a message to Dibble “congratulating her on her new assignment,” and the new assignment was unemployment.
“It emphasized that you need to be a team player and follow the rules if you’re going to be a part of the administration,” Ata told the jury on May 1, 2008.
Dibble donated $250 to Obama on June 30, 2003, $250 on January 23, 2004, and $250 on April 25, 2007. She is now an attorney with the Northern Trust, Obama’s Land Trust holder. On September 30, 2007, Dribble donated $1,000 to Obama presidential campaign.
Ata testified that he and Rezko once delivered $50,000 in cash to the home of co-schemer Christopher Kelly and left it in the car while they went inside. Ata said Rezko told him, “there’s somebody from Downstate that’s coming to pick up the money.”
Ata said he delivered another $25,000 to Rezko in early 2004, because Rezko said it was needed to pay contractors to stop them from filing a lien on Blagojevich’s home.
Ata also explained that Rezko made a problem with a state lease disappear in exchange for a 25% ownership in a real estate partnership. When Rezko’s attorney pressed for details about how that worked, Ata said Rezko had gone to Michael Rumman to get the matter resolved, the head of the Department of Central Management Services.
Ata says that after he met with the Feds for the first time, he got a voice-mail from Rumman saying Rumman was traveling with “our friend,” meaning Rezko, asking Ata to delay the meeting with investigators.
The other person who pressured Ata was Orlando Jones, the godson and former chief of staff to the deceased former Cook County Board President, John Stroger. Jones was a former vice president of Rezmar development company and an investor in Riverside Park.
Prosecutors say Jones also wanted Ata to lean on another Rezko associate to get him to stop cooperating. Ata told prosecutors that Jones reassured him that Rezko was working to kill the Board Games investigation by getting the Bush administration to fire Fitzgerald. “Don’t worry, the plan is still in place,” Jones told Ata.
Jones committed suicide in September 2007, after news of a pending indictment in a pay-to-play scheme reaching all the way to Las Vegas hit the media. “The discovery of Jones’ body came just two days after FBI agents approached Jones,” FBI spokesman Frank Bochte told the Sun-Times. Jones “cordially declined” to speak with Chicago agents.
The scheme in Las Vegas involved a company called Crystal Communications, lead by Martello Pollock. On June 30, 2003, Pollock donated $1,000 to Obama.
According to the Sun-Times, Jones had been interviewed by federal authorities a while before his death about fees he received from pension fund deals approved by the Illinois Board of Investments.
Allison Davis, Rezko’s real estate partner, and Obama’s former boss at the Davis, Minor & Barnhill law firm, was appointed to serve on the Board of Investment. Davis is president of the Davis Group. On January 29, 2003, the group donated $2,000 to Obama and on June 30, 2003, it made a contribution of $6,000. Obama also received donations from the group of $2,000 on July 7, 2004, $2,000 on January 29, 2007, and $2,300 on June 30, 2007.
Prosecutors allege that another member of this pension Board, Joe Carriatore made a deal with Rezko where his brother would get a seat on the Board for a $50,000 contribution to Blagojevich. He donated $1,000 to Obama on June 30, 2003. Carriatore was an original investor with Rezko in Riverside Park.
Velma Butler was recommended for this Board, but did not get the job. She gave Obama $1,000 on June 30, 2003, and donated $25,000 to Blagojevich three weeks later on July 25, 2003. Butler was also an investor in Riverside Park.
Combine members of Middle Eastern Descent
Ata is a former president of the Chicago Chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He represents “a deeper corruption” in the Arab American community, “an aspect of the story that has not received much attention,” according to a May 2, 2008 report by Ray Hanania in the Southwest News-Herald.
Hanania points out that many in the Arab community are calling Ata a “rat.” But he’s not alone, Hanania says:
“The real rats are those who used their positions as “leaders” to rape and pillage their own community. The real rats are the so-called ““leaders” who worked to benefit themselves pretending they were doing it for the benefit of the community.”
In his report, Hanania explains how Ata and others would help organize political dinners attended by Arab Americans from the suburbs at which politicians where “honored.”
“These Arab community “leaders,” he says, “would tell the community that if they bought tickets to their “candidate’s nights,” their organization fundraisers or donated through them to local politicians, these politicians would respond by giving the Arab American community empowerment.”
“In truth,” Hanania says, “these political leaders lied.”
“They did get jobs, contracts and clout,” he notes, “but the people who benefited were not members of the community but rather the relatives, children, friends and business associates of these leaders.”
Ata has done well as a member of the Combine. In 2004, his net worth was $12 million, according to the Tribune. In one state deal, Ata and partners, Faysal Mohamed, Fuad Mohamed and Refat Zayed, “took in more than $3.2 million from taxpayers by leasing a West Side office building to the state over 10 years,” the June 6, 2005 Sun-Times notes.
Rumman is also of Middle Eastern descent. He left his $120,900-a-year job in April 2005, after “Auditor General William Holland accused CMS of wasting taxpayer money, skirting state purchasing laws and failing to document hundreds of millions of dollars in alleged savings the agency attributed to its hiring of high-priced consultants,” the March 11, 2007 Sun-Times reported.
Rumman went on to become a major investor with the Iraqi-born Auchi and Syrian-born Rezko in Riverside Park and Rumman was the point man on a now canceled $200 million power plant contract in Iraq.”
Citizen WElls 