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Saddam Hussein, Barack Hussein Obama’s Hidden Real Estate Partner?

By Larry Johnson on April 14, 2008 at 4:01 PM in Current Affairs

If Republican 527 groups are still puzzled over what ammunition to onload on Barack Obama in the fall, they got a gift today. The prosecution’s witness, Stuart Levine, tied Barack Obama to Nadhmi Auchi and Tony Rezko way back in April of 2004. I can feel another Obama memory lapse coming on. But I can also see the Republicans loading up to “prove” that Barack was taking money from the same guy who one time allegedly did the bidding of Saddam Hussein. According to the Chicago Tribune:

Stuart Levine, the prosecution’s star witness, said he and Obama were at a party Rezko threw at his Wilmette mansion on April 3, 2004, for Nadhmi Auchi, a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who Rezko was trying to get to invest in a South Loop real-estate development.

Auchi, now a citizen of the United Kingdom, has faced criminal charges in Europe. He also figured in the revocation of Rezko’s bond early this year after attempting to wire him more than $3 million. Upon learning of that attempt, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve declared Rezko a flight risk and ordered him held in a federal jail in the Loop.

The Rezko party in 2004 was designed to induce Auchi to pour money into the South Loop investment. Obama’s presence at the party was not previously known. At the time, Obama was fresh off a surprise win in the Illinois Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and was riding a crest of national publicity.

Here’s the bottomline. Auchi, who some claim was a money man for Saddam Hussein, sent money to the Rezko family. Said funds in turn were used by Tony Rezko’s wife to help the Obama’s buy their house (she paid for a vacant lot that enabled the Obama’s to qualify for the loan they could afford at the time).

Susan UnPC put up a great story on the Auchi-Rezko-Obama ties in February. And we already know, thanks to the Times of London, that Auchi’s Panamanian company sent money into Obama’s political coffers. At a minimum, looks like Barack has got some more “splaining” to do.