Breaking Story: "Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald Could Indeed Send Barak Obama to Jail"

URGENT: Big story about to break, we are one step closer to Rezko giving Obama up to federal prosecutors

 

Hat tip to Norman Hooben. Also posted at RADARSITE.

From Liberty Republican
Oct 10, '08
by Becki for group libertyrepublican

 

The Sun Times today gave a major clue that Barack Obama will indeed go down with Tony Rezko, sooner rather than later.  It looks as though Rezko is about to turn on Alexi Giannoulias, the 30-year old State Treasurer of Illinois (who was elected only because Obama backed him).

Here’s where all the clues are…and then we’ll walk you through the local Chicago politics on how today’s hint by the Sun Times has us convinced, for the first time ever, that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald could indeed send Barack Obama to jail.

We need to repeat that: we never believed, until now, that Obama would go to jail for anything related to Rezko. Today, this breaking news about what Rezko is singing to the Feds about makes us reconsider all of that.

Barack Obama will serve a prison sentence in the next few years — because knowing Fitzgerald, there is no reason he would be going through all of this if that was not the targeted goal in the long term.

(1) Michael Sneed in her Sun Times column 10/10/08 had the following tidbit:

Sneed hears rumbles political fund-raiser/fixer Tony Rezko, who is now singing sweetly to the feds from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, has been talking about his “dealings” with a Chicago bank, which has political connections.

(2) We just spoke with someone well-connected in Chicago politics who told us that the bank Sneed is talking about has to be Broadway Bank, which is owned by the politically-connected Giannoulias family. We were told that Sneed’s column confirms rumblings people we know heard independently that Tony Rezko is giving up the Giannoulias family to Patrick Fitzgerald — Rezko and the Giannoulias family are as close and tied together as anyone in Chicago could be. If Rezko is turning on them, then Rezko is going to give up Governor Rod Blagojevich and Obama too.

We don’t want to end up in cement shoes for implying anything here, but if you live in Chicago for any length of time, you hear rumors about Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias family, and insert Tony Soprano references here. Kapeech?

(3) So, Rezko is singing about the Giannoulias family and its longtime “business dealings” in Chicago, which would interest someone like Fitzgerald and the Justice Department, who have had a long ambition to crack Soprano-style business dealings in Chicago (the city known for Al Capone hasn’t changed much, really). The next plate to drop in this will be Fitzgerald then leaning on the Giannoulias family to give up someone bigger than them, who Fitzgerald once discussed in terms of hoping “he has the morals to do the right thing”, to paraphrase. We now believe that person Fitz was talking about is Barack Obama.

(4) The Giannoulias family was involved with Obama as far back as his first state senate campaign in 1996. It has been long rumored here in Chicago that Obama obtained a sweetheart deal on his first town home here in Chicago — which he could not have afforded otherwise — and guess who the financing came from for that house? We’ve been told it was Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias bank. Now, this sets up a scenario where the Giannoulias family helps Obama with his campaign finances and gets him deeper in their pocket with his sweetheart mortgage deal (for the first home he owned that he could not afford) – all in exchange for quid pro quo to be determined later.

(5) One favor political Chicago claims Obama did for the Giannoulias family was in 2006 when, out of the blue, 29 year old Alexi Giannoulias, with no experience, and without ever having voted before, decides to run for State Treasurer of Illinois. Also out of the blue, Barack Obama endorses Alexi Giannoulias for State Treasurer. This was a SHOCK to everyone in Chicago — and Giannoulias would have never become State Treasurer without Obama’s help. In political circles here, it has always been believed that this endorsement was bought years ago with that sweetheart mortgage deal Broadway Bank arranged for Obama to buy his town house.

(6) So, the Tony Rezko sweetheart deal was not the first magic home loan Obama ever received to buy a house he could not afford.

There’s more to this that looks like it will break soon.  We were STUNNED when we read Sneed’s column because we never in a million years believed Fitz would actually be able to take down Obama.

We do not believe this will come out before the election, however, but we do believe Fitzgerald will continue his prosecution to the highest level, because that is what he does. Jean Valjean got off easy, compared to what it’s like to be in the crosshairs of perhaps the greatest prosecutor this nation has had in a generation. Patrick Fitzgerald is a force of nature.

Sneed’s clue can only mean Broadway Bank…we’ve now heard this from several people in Chicago. And Broadway Bank can only mean Giannoulias.  And Giannoulias leads to Obama through that town house home loan and the quid pro quo political endorsement several years later. And that home loan ties back to Rezko, in that it was the first of two shady home buys Obama made with quid pro quos attached to them.

Just thinking that last paragraph out, Obama’s defense in the Rezko business was that he never did anything for Rezko so there was no quid pro quo.  What the Giannoulias and Broadway Bank stuff proves is that Obama sits in people’s pockets for a while before the favor is given. He bought that town house sometime between 1997-2000 or so, since he lived there for a few years before trading up to the Obama Mansion with Rezko’s help in 2005, after he was in the United States Senate. And it looks like the payback was not given to the Giannoulias family until 2006, with Obama’s endorsement of Alexi Giannoulias for State Treasurer.

This all stems from Sneed’s clue in today’s Sun Times.  She says to stay tuned for more, so please do that.

When You Lay With Dogs........

....... you can expect to get fleas!!!!

Jury: Rezko guilty of 16 counts in corruption case

By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO - A prominent fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted Wednesday of fraud and money laundering after a high-profile federal trial provided an unusually detailed glimpse of the pay-to-play politics that has made Illinois infamous.Antoin "Tony" Rezko showed no emotion as the jury found him guilty of 16 of 24 counts, including scheming to get kickbacks from money management firms seeking state business and a contractor who wanted to build a hospital in northern Illinois. He was acquitted of charges that included attempted extortion.

"What the jury did was vindicate the interests of the citizens of Illinois and honest government," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.

The nine-week trial included explosive testimony about drug-fueled parties involving the government's star witness and allegations that the governor discussed a state job for a donor after the donor handed over a $25,000 check for Blagojevich's campaign.

Testimony barely touched on the relationship between Obama and Rezko, who has known the Democratic presidential candidate since he entered politics and was involved in a 2005 real estate deal with him. Most of the focus was on shakedowns prosecutors said Rezko arranged when he was a top adviser to Blagojevich.

Neither Blagojevich nor Obama has been accused of wrongdoing. Obama's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rezko's bond was immediately revoked Wednesday and he was taken into federal custody until his Sept. 3 sentencing.

"Mr. Rezko, on his own, decided that if he was convicted he wanted to immediately start serving his sentence," said defense attorney Joseph Duffy, who added that he would appeal.

Rezko's defense attorneys maintained that the government had little evidence tying him to corruption and that the star witness, admitted political fixer Stuart P. Levine, was not credible because years of drug use had damaged his memory.

Levine was a member of a state board that decided which hospitals got built and was on a panel that decided which investment firms got allocations from a $40 billion fund that pays the pensions of retired teachers.

Levine testified that Rezko, drawing on the political clout he developed as a Blagojevich fundraiser, stacked both boards with members who could be relied upon to follow orders when big-money decisions came up. Prosecutors said he used that clout to shake down companies and individuals hoping for state business for $7 million in kickbacks.

While Obama's name rarely surfaced during testimony, the case drew attention to Obama's relationship with Rezko, a man Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton derided in one televised debate as a "slum landlord."

Rezko, a real estate developer and fast-food entrepreneur, had been friendly with Obama for years, even offering him a job after Obama finished law school. Obama turned down the offer, but a political friendship developed.

For Obama's campaigns in Illinois, Rezko personally donated more than $21,000 and raised far more. Rezko did not personally donate to Obama's presidential campaign, but he helped raise $150,000. Obama has donated that amount to charity.

He also advised Obama on the purchase of a new Chicago home and, in his wife's name, purchased a vacant lot next to the new Obama home at the same time from a couple who insisted on selling both pieces of property simultaneously. The purchase raised questions about the extent of his help.

Rezko, 52, was charged with scheming with Levine to split a $1.5 million kickback from a contractor who wanted to build a hospital in northern Illinois and to shake down money management firms wanting to invest in the teacher pension fund.

Rezko denied he had anything to do with such a scheme.

Rezko attorneys claimed that once FBI wiretaps picked up Levine talking about payoffs and other corruption he needed to provide federal prosecutors with a "big fish" like Rezko in order to get a deal and avoid a possible life sentence.

Levine did make a deal with prosecutors under which instead of life he will probably get a 5 1/2-year prison sentence and forfeit $5 million. He admitted on the stand that for 30 years he attended twice-a-month marathon drug parties, where he shared drugs including cocaine and crystal methamphetamine with male companions.

Rezko attorneys said Levine's brain had been so badly damaged that he couldn't recall what Rezko had said and done years ago.