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Grand Central Political Magazine
Barack Obama's "Housing Problem"
By Alex Cortes
The mainstream media has failed in reporting the full extent of the disturbing ties between Senator Barack Obama and corrupt businessman Tony Rezko. However, on April 23rd of last year, Chicago Sun Times reporter Tim Novak published his investigation titled "Obama and his Rezko ties." Why hasn't the informative story broken into the mainstream media? The following is a summary of the paper's report.
Obama and Rezko have been friends since 1990, when the Chicago businessman offered the Senator a job after his graduation from Harvard Law.
In 1993, Obama jointed Davis Mines Barnhill & Galland, a small but prestigious law firm that specialized in helping the development of low-income housing. Allison S. Davis, the top partner at the firm, has been a member of the Chicago Planning Commission, a Mayor Daley appointed position. Davis was also a friend of Rezko.
In 1989, Rezko started a construction company called Rezmar, without any prior experience in the industry. For the next decade, Rezmar contracted with the Daley administration to rehab 30 buildings, a total of 1,025 apartments.
Obama's firm, while he was working there, helped Rezmar secure more than $43 million in government loans to rehab the last 15 of the buildings. The Senator's campaign staff has admitted that he worked on some of his firm's dealings with Rezko, although they say the work was just limited to five hours over the six years he worked there.
After only being at the firm for two years, Obama began his political career, running for the state senate in 1996. On July 31, 1995, he got his first campaign contribution: $2,000 from two of Rezko's food companies. Obama eventually won the race and continued his work at the law firm until 2004.
Then, between Dec. 27, 1996 and at least Feb. 3, 1997, the city of Chicago sued Rezmar for failing to turn the heat on in one of its buildings, an Englewood building in Obama's district. Rezmar couldn't find the money to get the heat back on, but was able to scrap together $1,000 to give to Obama's campaign on Jan. 14, 1997, a cold winter day during the five week heat shutdown. The Senator took the money, despite hearing complaints at the time from the building's residents.
Then in March 2001, a state foreclosure suit was filed against Rezmar for failing to make monthly mortgage payments on a state loan for low income apartments he rehabbed at 6140 S. Drexel, also in Obama's state senate district.
Once again, aware of the foreclosures and mismanagement of Rezmar's properties, including eleven properties in Obama's district, the state senator appointed Rezko to serve on his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign finance committee. The committee raised more than $14 million.
In 2005, John Aramanda served as intern for Obama for a month. His father is Joseph Aramanda, a Rezko business associate who contributed $11,500 to the state senator since 2000. However, if Obama had proper judgment he wouldn't have associated with Rezko's buddies. For he knew Rezko was corrupt, yet continued to work with him.
Then in January 2006, Obama bought the property adjacent to his house from Rezko. At the time of sale, it was widely known Rezko was under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office. Therefore, not only should have Obama's knowledge of Rezko's past dealings led him to avoid the deal, but the risk of being tied to the investigation was a clear and present danger. Rezko and Aramanda were later charged in a federal corruption case on an alleged kickback scheme.
When media scrutiny arrived with the case, Obama called the property deal "boneheaded" and decided to donate $157, 835 of campaign contributions tied to Rezko. Apparently one action's are only boneheaded once they are called out upon it.
You would think that the populist Obama who speaks of the struggles of the poor and middle class and promises hope for a better future, would deny Rezko's money and insist it be spent on his constituents, those literally left in the cold by the businessman. However, after witnessing the corruption time and time again, Obama continued to be friends with, work with, and take money from Rezko. Words are everything to Obama, but his despicable actions clearly fail to fulfill his beautiful rhetoric.
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Alex Cortes is a student at the University of Virginia.