Smasharoo wrote:
There's nothing there, right?
Right?
Not really. There's been a story about Rezko literally every day for the past two years. And not Gbaji-literally,but the sort of literally where I can pick any day in the past 24 months and find a Rezko story in that day's
Tribune and a different one in that day's
Sun Times. This bit from a
Tribune story probably best sums everything up.
The Jan 20, 2008, Chicago Tribune wrote:
Obama has been accused of no wrongdoing involving Rezko and has insisted that he never used his office to benefit Rezko.
Thus far, there is little in the public record to suggest otherwise, and the few exceptions that have come to light appear minor. On Capitol Hill, Obama once gave a summer internship to the son of a Rezko business associate on Rezko's recommendation. Earlier, as a state senator, Obama was one of several South Side political and community leaders who wrote state and city officials urging approval of public funding for a senior housing project involving Rezko.
But when Rezko pushed for passage in Springfield of a major gambling measure, Obama vocally opposed it.
Obama publicly apologized for his 2005 property deal with Rezko, calling it "boneheaded" because Rezko was widely reported to be under grand jury investigation at the time. And Obama has given to charities $85,000 in Rezko-linked campaign contributions, including $40,035 last weekend following a published report suggesting that Rezko funneled a $10,000 donation to Obama through a business associate. Aides to Obama say the senator had no knowledge of any such scheme.
The property deal is the thing everyone focues on but it's still proved a non-starter. In quick terms, Obama was interested in a house with an adjoining property. The owner of both wanted to sell both as a parcel but Obama had little interest in both. Obama bought the house and Rezko's wife bought the adjoining lot. Later, Rezko's wife sold Obama 20% of the lot to expand his yard for 20% of the price she paid. She later sold the remaining 80% of the lot to someone else for 80% of what she paid. She didn't profit and Obama paid "retail" on the lot portion.
Obama
did purchase the home for a fair chunk lower than the original asking price but the previous owners have gone on record stating that they sold the house to Obama for that price because that was the best offer they had received and they wanted to sell it.
I
will admit that Obama's mea cupla is warranted because it was a poor choice to associate himself in a business sense with Rezko given the circumstances. But there hasn't been any solid allegation or evidence of anything unethical or hints that money was being traded for political favors, etc.
Personally, I don't expect it to ever gain more traction than it has. The biggest plum to it is a real estate story and people hate trying to follow real estate scandals. The rest of it is a web of donations and favors between Rezko and a bunch of names not recognized outside of the state (or even south of I-80 for the most part). The people who
could best follow it are bored of it after 24 months. The only interesting facet to it now is Rezko's associations with Blagojevich but that's because we're all looking to blame Blagojevich for stuff.
Edited, Feb 26th 2008 7:01pm by Jophiel