What Change Will Obama Make?

Tony Rezko

Of all Barack Obama’s associations, his friendship with the convicted Chicago slumlord and political operator Tony Rezko is probably the most indefensible. Rezko was Barack Obama’s political godfather, providing crucial financial support at every stage of his political career.

Atonin “Tony” Rezko was born in Aleppo, Syria. He came to the United States after graduating from high school in Syria in order to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology where he earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in civil engineering and construction management. Rezko has financial ties to the Middle East, the most prominent being Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi billionaire who was an associate of Saddam Hussein and who served as Hussein’s bag man during the Oil for Food scam. Rezko is the ultimate operator and con man.

Barack Obama met Rezko in Chicago at about the time he was finishing law school at Harvard. Rezko wished to recruit Obama to work for Rezmar, his community development firm, but Obama turned him down. Instead, Obama went to work for the small law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which specialized in civil rights, and real estate law, among other areas. One of its partners was Allison Davis, a business partner of Tony Rezko. After Davis left, the firm changed its name to Miner, Barnhill & Galland.

Rezmar, Rezko’s community development firm, was organized in 1989. Its goal: to build and renovate low-income housing units for the poor. The record shows that over a nine-year period, Rezko and his partners received more than $100 million from the city, state, and federal governments to rehabilitate thirty buildings in the city of Chicago. Of this total, Rezko personally received $6.9 million to provide 1,025 housing units. By 2007, an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that, of the thirty buildings, six were boarded up, and seventeen were in foreclosure after Rezko abandoned them. Many of the apartment units in these buildings were vacant or needed extensive repairs. Eleven of these buildings were in the state senatorial district represented by Barack Obama. Today, Rezko is unable to account for the millions given him by various government entities.

During all this time, Rezko greased the wheels by being actively involved in city and state Democratic political circles. As a major contributor to the successful gubernatorial campaign of Rod Blagojevich, he helped establish the first Democratic administration in twenty years and successfully lobbied to have several of his business associates appointed to state boards. He then used these connections to demand kickbacks from businesses that wanted to do work for the state. He and several of his cronies were indicted on federal charges in 2006. In June, 2008, he was convicted on multiple counts of fraud and bribery stemming from these activities, including 16 of the 24 charges filed against him. Chief among these was using his clout with the Blagojevich administration to squeeze $7 million in kickbacks out of a contractor and seven money management firms seeking to do business with the state. His sentencing, originally scheduled for October 28, has been postponed until after the election. Reports in the Sun-Times suggests that Rezko is whispering secrets to federal prosecutors about corruption in Illinois, and the political fallout could be explosive.

As a junior attorney in the law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, Obama did legal work for Rezmar. According to investigative reporter Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times, Rezmar did fifteen building projects while being represented by Obama’s firm which helped the company get more than $43 million in government funding. Later, former senior partner Allison S. Davis, went into business with Rezko and, in 2003, was appointed to Illinois State Board of Investment by Governor Blagojevich at Rezko's request. Beginning in July, 1995, political donations began to flow Obama’s way from Rezko and entities owned by him. In 2003, Rezko became one of the people on Obama's U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, which raised more than $14 million. Obama himself has since identified over $250,000 in campaign contributions to various Obama campaigns as coming from Rezko or close associates, and has claimed to have donated almost two thirds of that amount to unspecified nonprofit groups.

Where did Rezko get the money which he donated to the Obama campaigns? According to the Sun-Times' Tim Novak, at least $14 million of it came from taxpayers in the form of grants Rezko received to build Cottage View Terrace, an apartment complex for senior citizens. Of this $14 million, $855,000 went to Rezko and Allison Davis in the form of development fees. And another $900,000 went to Allison Davis in the form of federal tax credits. The 97-unit “low-income” Cottage View Terrace ultimately opened in 2002 at a cost of $144,000 per unit. Tim Novak of the Sun-Times discovered that Obama wrote letters to city and state officials in support of Rezko’s project. The revelation clearly contradicted statements by Obama that he never did any favors for Rezko. Moreover, the letters were written while Obama was a state senator and an employee of the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland which represented Rezko’s real estate interests, an obvious conflict of interest. Essentially, Obama stiffed his own constituents by accepting political contributions from a slumlord who allowed the projects in which many of them lived to deteriorate. And during his tenure as a state senator, he did nothing to protest or call into question any of the practices which harmed the people of his district.

Tony Rezko is one of the sleaziest and morally reprehensible characters to ever tread upon the Chicago political landscape. His activities are a reflection of how the game is played in the corrupt Chicago and Illinois political environment. Taxpayers are fleeced while corrupt politicians like Obama and developers like Rezko split the take. Is it any wonder why Democrats resist calls for smaller government? It would give them a smaller pool of public monies to divide among themselves.

Whether by commission or omission, Obama participated in, and benefited from, a corrupt political process which enriched wealthy developers at the expense of his own constituents. Obama gladly accepted the fruits of that corrupt bargain. And now, incredibly, he wants a promotion to the highest office in the land as reward.

Obama’s ties to Tony Rezko crush the claim that he an agent of change. If Chicago politics was a training ground for higher office, Obama failed miserably. There is nothing in his conduct, either a state senator or United States Senator, that demonstrates that he had the courage to buck the corrupt players in his own party or the corrupt donors to his political campaigns, even when their activities harmed his own constituents. Moreover, an examination of his activities as either a community organizer or a politician reveal a man quick to take credit, but slow to do any of the heavy lifting. Behind the smooth speaking voice is a man devoid of the moral courage, honesty, and judgment to be President of the United States.

More on Rezko:

Chicago newspaper article
Washington Post article
Wikipedia.