Blagojevich trial, Obama Levine ties, Stuart Levine must testify
Barack Obama and Stuart Levine
From the Citizen Wells blog, April 2, 2008.
I repeat, April 2, 2008.
“We need to know the truth about Barack Obama. We need to know where Obama was on November 4, 1999. We need to know where Obama was and what he was doing during his term in the Illinois Senate. When I first read the allegations of Larry Sinclair, I was very skeptical. I am still somewhat skeptical. However, I went to the records of the Illinois Senate for November 4, 1999 and Barack Obama was not present. Sinclair alleges that he had 2 encounters with Obama from November 3 to November 8 1999. The first encounter was allegedly in a rented limo and involved drugs and gay sex. This alone was not a red flag for me but when you couple this information with Obama’s known association with criminals, with racists and hate mongers and his failure to provide his records while in the Illinois Senate, there is a legitimate need to get straight answers from Obama.”
“Lynn Sweet, a columnist and the Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times states:
“Instead, since I have some reporting history here, I am noting a pattern that has emerged: This is Obama’s third ethical conversion of convenience — taking on a higher standard, but only when it appears to be politically expedient. Obama is making government transparency and ethics a centerpiece of his presidential campaign.”
In a Tribune interview Thursday, the Illinois Democrat said he had no intention of sharing any of the documents he might still have in his possession.”
Next are the questions asked and responses from Obama. I know that many people have read this, but it is worth repeating:
“Q: It is kind of unknown where some of the records from your time in Springfield are located. Where is that stuff, what do you have?
“We had one district director. I had one staff person, so, you know, we didn’t have some elaborate sort of system. I didn’t at my disposal millions of dollars and potentially multiple staff people to conduct an archive. Now keep in mind, it is apples and oranges. First of all, I’m not the one who has made this an issue. We saw during the debate, Senator Clinton was asked about it and the suggestion was somehow they’ve done all they could. And my simple point was, I don’t think there is some smoking gun in these archives or something, or some damning evidence.”
“Q: What about your stuff, though? What do you have?
“I have no idea. I mean [muffled on recording]. I really don’t. Again, I did not have at my disposal. I wasn’t preparing for the Obama state senatorial library.”
Q: You must have kept some stuff. Correspondence, calendars?
“The problem is whatever remaining documents I have are inevitably incomplete. And then the questions going to be, where’s this or where’s that. Once I start heading down that road, then it puts me in a position that could end up being misleading. I don’t want to mislead people. I don’t know the extent of the records that I have as a state senator.”””
“The following is from Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times on November 11, 2007:
“On Friday, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reported that she had asked Obama at a news conference: “Do your state senate papers still exist? If they do, just where are they? And would you ever intend to make them public to be responsive to some requests?”
Sweet wrote that he replied: “Nobody has requested specific documents.”
But the Chicago Tribune has reported that it “requested documents from his time in Springfield and never received a response.””
Is this one of the reasons Obama has kept hidden his IL Senate records?
From the Tony Rezko Trial
Remember, the IL State Capital is Springfield.
“Tales of the ‘Purple Hotel’
March 31, 2008; 2:43 p.m.
Prosecutors have taken a turn from the track of the day’s testimony and are asking political fixer and prosecution star witness Stuart Levine again about his drug use, the first time they have done so since early in his testimony.
Levine has said he used a number of drugs in the 1980s and into 2004, including cocaine and crystal methamphetamine.
He said he would make cash withdrawals, give that money to five male friends and use drugs with them during hotel parties. Those parties took place in Springfield and Lincolnwood at a place Levine said he and his friends came to call “the Purple Hotel.””
“”I do not remember using drugs on that day”
April 3, 2008; 12:32 p.m.
One of defense attorney Joseph Duffy’s first stabs at tripping up star prosecution witness Stuart Levine involved an attempt to raise doubt about his state of mind the very first time he met Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
Levine had testified earlier that the two were introduced at a dinner party on Nov. 2, 2002, just days before the election that brought Gov. Rod Blagojevich to power. It was at that dinner that Levine testified he learned that Rezko had been blocking a real estate deal on which Levine had been seeking a sizeable kickback.
But Duffy produced a Levine credit card receipt showing a $761.87 transaction dated that day at a Lincolnwood hotel where Levine often went for all-day drug binges.”
“Levine explains decision to flip
April 3, 2008; 5:56 p.m.
Before Stuart Levine’s testimony ended for the day, he was walked through his decision to cooperate with prosecutors in their corruption case against Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
Rezko’s defense attorney Joseph Duffy wanted to explore Levine’s motivation and first asked about a conversation Levine had with his business partner Robert Weinstein after FBI agents had come to Levine’s home to confront him in May 2004.
Levine’s phone was still tapped, and he was recorded telling Weinstein that agents had visited him. But Levine said he did not remember telling his partner that agents had mentioned Rezko was a target of an investigation.
“The government’s looking for a big fish, and it’s Tony Rezko,” Duffy quoted Levine as saying on the tape, which was not played in court.
Duffy then took Levine through the time leading up to his eventual indictment in the Rosalind Franklin University School of Medicine and Science kickback case a year later, in May 2005.
Levine still had not agreed to cooperate, and Levine told Duffy that he did not believe the government was aware of the “secret part of his life,” meaning his drug abuse and hotel parties with male friends.”
” Trail of receipts from the Purple Hotel
April 4, 2008; 10:55 a.m.
More tales of the Purple Hotel kicked off this morning’s session of the Antoin “Tony” Rezko corruption trial.
On Thursday, Rezko’s lawyer Joseph Duffy grilled prosecution star witness Stuart Levine about a $761 transaction on his credit card statement for Saturday, Nov. 2, 2002, at the garish purple-painted Lincolnwood hotel that at the time was part of the Radisson chain. Levine has testified that he and a regular group of “drug buddies” often went to the hotel for daylong binges of crystal meth, cocaine, animal tranquilizers and other drugs.
The significance of that date is that it was the same that Rezko and Levine first met. The occasion was a dinner party, and during the chitchat Levine has said the two men came to realize they had been on opposite sides of a shady real estate deal.
As Duffy tries to chip away at Levine’s credibility, the lawyer used the credit-card statement to suggest that Levine’s memory of that first meeting was suspect because he showed up at the party after leaving a drug binge.
Levine acknowledged that the charge on his credit card was likely legitimate, but repeatedly insisted that he did not remember being at the hotel on that day and considered it unlikely. Credit-card transactions are not always recorded on the same day a charge is actually made.
This morning, Duffy questioned Levine about more charges he incurred at the Radisson. On Saturday, Oct. 26, exactly one week before the dinner party, Levine’s credit-card statement reflected a $1,077 charge at the Radisson, and exactly a week before that there was another $1021 charge there.
Duffy appears to be trying to suggest that Levine had a regular Saturday thing at the Radisson with his drug buddies. In earlier testimony, Levine said the group would get together and party once or twice a month at the Lincolnwood hotel, and always on weekdays. Levine said he tried to hide his secret drug life from his family and wanted to be home and clear-headed on the weekends.”
Rezko Trial transcripts.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-rezko-court-story-7,0,5224754.htmlstory
Do Larry Sinclair’s allegations of a drug and sex encounter with Barack Obama in November, 1999 seem so far fetched?
From the Citizen Wells blog April 30, 2008.
“A comment was just posted on this blog. I recognize the poster from this blog and others I have posted on. Delenn has stated in the past that she was a chef and restaurant owner in Chicago and heard many rumors about Obama. Below is her comment about the Rezko trial, names being withheld and under reporting of the trial:
“Living in the Chicago area and being the “victim” of Chicago news media, I noticed early on in the Rezko trial that U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve quashed mention of politicians’ names except for a chosen few… so we have “Politician A,” “Poltician B,” and on and on down the alphabet. Judge St. Eve also ruled to keep jurors’ identities secret… which more than anything attests to the known potential for violence coming from those associated with Rezko, Levine, and likely from the political machines involved. And Judge St. Eve would not allow Levine to name names as to the identities of those present at the all-male parties involving drug use — parties attended by some of the city’s and state’s political powers-that-be as well as by those wanting favors. There was a “leak” months ago that Politician A is Governor Rod Blagojovich… but oddly no further identifying leaks materialized. Blagojovich has been candid in the past about his interest in running for US president — I think the “leak” was a way to shut him down, and frankly I believe that he was shut down to open the way for Obama’s candidacy, if not in 2008, then in 2012. I don’t know how coverage of this trial has been played elsewhere, but here it’s been curiously underplayed — odd indeed, considering the Chicago news media’s normal tendency to over-cover any major stories based in the area. I’ve suspected since early on in the trial that the under-coverage, and possibly even some of the court’s rulings regarding testimony, have been connected to Obama’s candidacy. Add to this that I haven’t seen a single television news story concerning the allegations of money laundering involving Robert Blackwell and Barack Obama and… well, the word “fishy” isn’t strong enough by half. The scents of coverup and collusion here in Chicagoland simply reek.””
Politician A
Politician B
For the Blagojevich trial to be legitimate, for the charges in the indictment to be substantiated, Stuart Levine will take the stand, just as he did in the Tony Rezko trial. The question is, will Levine be restricted from naming politicians?
Will Obama’s name be mentioned with regularity in the Blagojevich trial, just as Blagojevich’s name was mentioned during the Rezko trial?
Footnote: For those really paying attention, you noticed that Larry Sinclair came out with his allegations of a drug and sex encounter with Obama months before Stuart Levine gave his testimony.
Citizen WElls 