The state senator who couldn't keep his constituents from the cold

"Senator Obama does not remember having conversations with Tony Rezko about properties that he owned" — Obama’s campaign staff, April 2007 (Chicago Sun-Times)

For more than five weeks during the brutal winter of 1997, tenants shivered without heat in a government-subsidized apartment building on Chicago's South Side... It was just four years after the landlords -- Antoin "Tony'' Rezko and his partner Daniel Mahru -- had rehabbed the 31-unit building in Englewood with a loan from Chicago taxpayers.

How cold was it?

During January and early February, temperatures routinely dipped to around ten degrees below zero.

But Rezko and his partner couldn't rustle up enough money to get the Englewood building's heat turned back on.

However their company, Rezmar Corp., did manage to find $1,000, which it promptly gave to the campaign fund of State Senator Barack Obama. The young politican had recently been elected the representative for the district that included the Englewood apartment complex.

The South Sangamon apartment building finally had its heat turned on in February 1997, but only after the city of Chicago sued, eventually collecting a $100 fine from Rezmar. There is apparently no evidence that the young state senator prompted Chicago's lawsuits against Rezko's various companies.

But the tenants there had no heat from Dec. 27, 1996, until at least Feb. 3, 1997, when the city of Chicago sued. It was during this exact period that the district's new state senator -- Barack Obama -- received a $1,000 donation from Rezmar. The date was Jan. 14, 1997.

The South Sangamon building was one of 30 low-income projects—containing a total of 1,025 apartments—that Rezko took on between 1989 and 1998. In all, Rezmar Corp. collected more than $100 million by arranging “public-private partnerships” with the city, the state and federal governments, and in bank loans to rehab South Side buildings intended as low-income housing. Neither Rezko nor his partner had any construction experience when they created Rezmar, but they became experts at working Chicago’s political system to acquire taxpayer subsidies for their redevelopment schemes...

...Not surprisingly, every one of the projects ran into financial difficulties within six years.

Eleven of Rezko's buildings were in Obama's district (and all were in close proximity to the district). The results of Rezko's housing experiment?

• Seventeen buildings -- many beset with code violations, including a lack of heat -- ended up in foreclosure.
• Six buildings are currently boarded up.
• Hundreds of the apartments are vacant, in need of major repairs.
• Taxpayers have been stuck with millions in unpaid loans.
• At least a dozen times, the city of Chicago sued Rezmar for failure to heat buildings.

Did State Senator Obama ever complain to anyone -- government officials, Rezmar or Rezko -- about the conditions of Rezmar's buildings? There appears to be no documented evidence that Obama stood up for his constituents against Rezko.

But he did find time to write letters for Rezko; these requests were only recently discovered...

Click for the rest [Doug Ross @ Journal].

Tony Rezko's mysterious investor and Barack H. Obama

Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter provides an excellent overview of "Barack Obama's Auchi Problem."

Who is Nadhmi Auchi? He's a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who reportedly dealt with Saddam Hussein's regime prior to the Gulf War and whose bank trafficked most of the funds involved in the massive UN Oil-for-food scandal. Convicted of fraud in France in 2003, his request to enter the U.S. in 2005 was denied.

But someone with pull at the State Department was able to secure a visa for him in 2006. The executive summary:

Tony Rezko pimped out Barack Obama to impress Nadhmi Auchi, a bad operator who found the political culture in Chicago and Illinois amenable to his kind of investment acumen. The only problem was that Rezko's deal was in trouble, and Rezko himself was caught up in, among other scandals, a minority-contracting scam with the Dalely administration. At the same time, Rezko was wheeling and dealing with the Blagojevich administration and everyone in the political universe knew he was under federal investigation for it but Obama asked for his help buying a $1.6 million mansion and appeared at a couple of events to help Rezko impress Auchi and others.

Now Obama's memory is faulty because there's that pesky question of judgement, as well as the stain on his meticulously burnished image as a beacon of hope and reform because his relationship with both Rezko and the Machine and politics-as-usual is deeper than he's ever cared to admit. Have I missed anything? Does that make sense now? Do you get the feeling there's still more to the story that we don't know about?

Via RezkoWatch, Rick Moran notes that during a March 14, 2008 with the Chicago Sun-Times, Barack Obama denied helping Auchi enter the country but doesn't know whether his staff assisted the controversial billionaire.

Q: Did you ever help Auchi enter the country?
A: No.
Q: Or your office?
A: Not that I know of.

Moran goes on to explain the shady ties.

Obama himself has been extraordinarily vague about any possible meetings, saying that while he very well may have met Auchi, he doesn’t recall it... [There are serious questions about] the source of money that Rezko used to buy a side lot to Obama’s mansion at a time when he told a court he was flat broke and heavily in debt.

[A] holding company belonging to Auchi... loaned Mr. Rezko $3.5 million dollars just three weeks before Obama and Rezko closed the sale on the property simultaneously –a stipulation by the previous owners that both the lot and house be sold at the same time– thus allowing Obama to purchase his dream house.

...Auchi has a reputation in Great Britain of collecting politicians “the way that other people collect stamps.”

Let's recap.

So Auchi – friend of Saddam, international fraudster, and business partner to one of Chicago’s premiere fixers– gave Rezko the money that allowed Obama to purchase his house. Without the loan, Rezko would not have been able to afford the $125,000 downpayment on the lot and Obama would not have been able to meet the terms set by the sellers.

Did Auchi know that part of that money would be used to help Obama purchase his house? Did Obama know where Rezko’s money came from?

Good questions all. And, thus far, conclusive answers have not been forthcoming.

But if Obama's campaign is truly about "judgment", his associations with extremely shady characters like Rezko and Auchi -- involving possible quid pro quo dealings -- do not speak well for him.

Obama Is Silent

That is a truly novel approach to politics. Except when it comes to Obama's friend Antoin "Tony'' Rezko. Tony is a high powered developer of slum property with friends in City Hall.

Well you know how it is in Chicago politics. Sometimes silence is better than an insurance policy. A life insurance policy. Which only pays off after you are dead.

For five long weeks, Sun-Times' investigative reporter Tim Novak called, e-mailed, requested, practically pleaded with Obama's press people to provide information about the senator's relationship to Rezko when it came to the development of low-income housing in Chicago. In an abundance of fairness and an excess of solicitousness, Novak sent a list of questions.

For five weeks, no answer.

I have a lot more on the Obama/Rezko connection and how Rezko the slum lord (on Chicago's dime) destroyed the housing stock in poor neighborhoods at city and Federal expense at Power and Control.