Barack Obama Played the Pay for Play Game
By Larry Johnson on December 13, 2008 at 3:25 PM in Current Affairs
If you go back and examine the historical record Barack Obama wisely distanced himself from both Tony Rezko and Governor Rod Blagojevich as it became clear they were under investigation on corruption charges. But that does not mean that Barack was ignorant of how the game was played. In fact, he played along. Check out this Chicago Tribune piece from John Kass in January 2006. Commenting on then Senator Obama Kass writes:
He didn’t call a news conference condemning City Hall for corruption. For example, he didn’t condemn the Duffs, the mayor’s white friends who received $100 million in affirmative action contracts from the Daley administration that should have gone to minorities.
“As you know, it’s not my habit to hold press conferences to chase headlines,” Obama said. “If somebody’s asking my opinion, I’ll tell it.”
The senator has been asked. In August of 2005, with the patronage scandal and Hired Truck scandal swamping Mayor Daley, Obama said corruption bothered him. He was asked if he’d support Daley if the mayor seeks re-election in 2007.
“I think that what has happened … gives me huge pause,” Obama said.
Later, a reporter asked him if it were true that Daley’s scandals had given him pause in considering an endorsement. According to the Tribune article of Aug. 5, 2005, Obama snapped: “That’s not what I said. … Don’t put words in my mouth.”
But since he accepted the job of Sen. Thwackum in a Democratic Party news conference last week, he can’t avoid the issue. (One of those Democrats was U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), whose husband, political activist Robert Creamer, will be sentenced soon after being convicted of a check-kiting scam.)
“I had to participate in the news conference,” Obama told me on Friday. “But my main goal is going to be to see if I can get Democrats and Republicans to sit down and try to figure out if there’s a solution to this thing.”
That’s not what Democratic Party leaders want. They want him to kick Republican political behinds on national TV. Yet the first time someone close to Obama screws up with a campaign check, he’ll be called a hypocrite. That’s the trap.
And while the temptation among his Washington media champions who share his politics will be to ignore the Chicago corruption, there’s an unavoidable connection.
U.S. Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-Ill.), who runs the national party’s effort to elect more Democrats to the House, was himself elected to Congress with the help of corrupt city water department boss Don Tomczak, who ran a patronage army for Daley that is under federal investigation. Tomczak, who pleaded guilty, is cooperating with prosecutors.
Emmanuel has said he was unaware of Tomczak’s political help. Obama didn’t want to touch this one.
“Well, a lot of this stuff is going to play itself out,” he said. “My goal is just to see if there’s some low hanging fruit that we should go ahead and take care of, and that’s what I want to do.”Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas, the most prominent Republican scorched so far, complains prosecutors are out to “criminalize politics.” That’s the same line used by the Daleys.
“No party has a monopoly on virtue,” Obama said. “And I think there are some things that are clearly out of bounds. Are there gray areas? Sure. But my goal is just to get it to where the stuff that is clearly black and white is off the table.”Good luck, Senator. Be careful.
The details of how one “pays to play” was documented clearly in a November 21, 2004 Tribune piece by James Kimberly and Ray Long:
A prolific fundraiser unmatched in Illinois history, Blagojevich has generated $36.4 million in only four years. It took his predecessor, former Republican Gov. George Ryan, 30 years in state government to raise $40 million.
Blagojevich has successfully championed ethics reforms, including a law that banned lobbyists from serving on boards and commissions.
But he has come under criticism for being slow to make some appointments, such as to a highly touted ethics commission and a specially designated group charged with reviewing recent changes in the death penalty.
As a campaigner intent on changing the anything-goes atmosphere in Springfield, Blagojevich railed against Ryan for rewarding insiders and political pals. But Blagojevich has not refrained from awarding appointments and contracts to his benefactors, either.
His administration, for example, gave a $214,000 contract to manage the state’s fleet of vehicles to Maximus Inc. of Reston, Va. The company contributed $20,000 to Blagojevich and has paid former Republican Gov. Jim Thompson, a member of Blagojevich’s transition team, to sit on its board.
The firm and family of Jay Wilton, the managing partner of a California firm rebuilding Illinois tollway oases and planning to manage them for 25 years, donated to Blagojevich more than $84,000 in cash, transportation and meals.
The administration awarded a $240,000 contract for a Web-based ethics-training program to California-based LRN, the Legal Knowledge Co., which has a board member who is a contributor to Blagojevich and other Democrats.
The governor’s office also picked Team Services LLC of Bethesda, Md., to administer a state initiative designed to use corporate sponsorships to underwrite government costs. One of Team Services’ principals gave Blagojevich a $4,000 donation and once had a business relationship with Lon Monk, the governor’s chief of staff.
Blagojevich has always portrayed himself as a family man, but that image apparently extends to his political family.
A sister of Chris Kelly, Blagojevich’s chief fundraiser, has a $91,992-a-year state job with an agency overseeing real estate professions. A sister of one of the governor’s chief legislative allies, Sen. Carol Ronen (D-Chicago), has a nearly $40,000-per-year part-time position on the Illinois Human Rights Commission. The governor also appointed to the Illinois Arts Council both his mother-in-law and the wife of his deputy governor.
State records show Blagojevich appeared to receive contributions from appointees at a clip faster than either Ryan or former Gov. Jim Edgar.
Desirable appointments
Though most appointments Blagojevich has made since he took office in January 2003 pay little more than expenses, many are desirable for political cachet. The governor’s initial appointments to the Health Facilities Planning Board–which was reconfigured in September–came under increasing scrutiny amid a federal investigation and allegations that former board member Stuart Levine tried to steer lucrative hospital construction business to a friend’s company.
Levine, a longtime Republican donor, paid more than $4,000 in transportation costs last year to ferry campaign staff and supporters on separate Blagojevich fundraising trips in October and December.
Kankakee neurologist Michel Malek and Winnetka podiatrist Fortunee Massuda, who has been in a real estate venture with top Blagojevich adviser Antoin Rezko, are each tied to $25,000 donations less than three weeks before Blagojevich appointed them.
Another board member, Danalynn Rice, contributed $1,000 to Blagojevich and received a boost from a prominent Downstate union official instrumental in Blagojevich’s election.
Edward M. Smith, vice president and Midwest manager of the Laborers International Union of North America, said he submitted Rice’s name to the governor’s office for a health board vacancy.
The political arm of Smith’s union contributed about $133,500 to the Blagojevich campaign. Blagojevich also appointed Smith to the State Board of Investment, which oversees some of the state’s retirement funds.
Both Smith and Rice said contributions did not play a role in their appointments.
Many of Blagojevich’s selections are to unheralded boards.
They include attorney Leo A. Smith, a longtime Blagojevich supporter who donated $109,831 in cash and services to the governor’s campaign and ended up on a panel studying early childhood development.
“It’s really based not just on his support for early childhood education,” Smith said of his donation, “but I think he’s done a tremendous job in tough financial times.”
Likewise, Blagojevich appointee Kevin Freeman, a partner at the Chicago law firm of Gardner Carton and Douglas, said he was shocked to learn his firm had donated more than $52,000 in cash and services to the governor’s campaign. “I knew our firm supported the governor, but I didn’t know to that extent,” said Freeman, who was appointed to the Property Tax Appeals Board, a panel many businesses go to when protesting assessment hikes. Freeman is the son of Supreme Court Justice Charles Freeman.
Another partner in Freeman’s law firm, Jesse Ruiz, was named by Blagojevich as chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education.
It took more than four years for the Feds to gather the evidence that led to Blago’s indictment this week. The worm turned on Blago in April of this year when Ali Ata pled guilty in a criminal case that involved Tony Rezko and Rod Blagojevich:
Gov. Rod Blagojevich has again been stung by accusations that he knowingly exchanged positions in his administration for campaign cash, this time by a former state official who says the governor was in the room when money changed hands.
The new corruption allegations are some of the strongest yet leveled against Blagojevich, but they didn’t come at the trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, his former fundraiser and adviser.
Ali Ata, a former high-ranking Blagojevich administration official, pleaded guilty Tuesday in a separate criminal case involving Rezko. Ata admitted he bought his $127,000-a-year state job by bribing Rezko and making campaign contributions to Blagojevich.
Ata, the one-time executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, a development that could have a significant impact on Rezko’s trial and federal investigations of the administration.
Former state official says he bought his job by bribing Rezko Video
Ata said Blagojevich, identified in Ata’s plea agreement as Public Official A, was present in a meeting at Rezko’s Chicago office, at which Ata brought a $25,000 campaign check and a state position for him was discussed. Rezko put the check on a conference room table in front of Blagojevich, Ata told authorities.
“Public Official A expressed his pleasure and acknowledged that the defendant had been a good supporter and a good friend,” Ata’s plea agreement said. “Public Official A, in the defendant’s presence, asked Rezko if [Rezko] had talked to the defendant about positions in the administration, and Rezko responded that he had.”
At a large fundraiser at Navy Pier in summer 2003, the topic came up again, according to the court document. Ata had brought another $25,000, and he and the governor allegedly talked about a state post.
Ata “responded that he was considering taking a [state] position, and [Blagojevich] stated that it had better be a job where the defendant could make some money,” the plea agreement said.
Ata’s lawyer, Thomas McQueen, said Ata would do whatever the government asked of him, including offering court testimony. He may get that chance sooner rather than later, as a prosecutor at Rezko’s corruption trial said Ata could be called as a witness. He would be expected to corroborate what the jury already has heard about Rezko’s heavy influence in the Blagojevich administration.
But Obama stayed away from this kind of stuff. Right? No. David Freddoso documents the quid pro quo relationship with Rezko on pp. 215-8 of his book, The Case Against Barack Obama.
In June 1998 Barak Obama wrote letters to city and state officials backing Rezko’s bid to get more that $14 million in tax payer dollars to build ninety-seven apartments for senior citizens. Obama, like Blagojevich above, claimed it was a mere coincidence that he wrote these letters and his longtime friends and political supporters got millions in tax payer dough.
But he did more than write letters. In January 1998 Obama championed a bill in the State senate that changed property tax laws and created an abatement of low-income housing. Barack told his legislative colleagues:
Essentially what this bill does is it helps to enhance the potential for privatizaiton of public housing by providing a tax abatement for the construction of multifamily units that will house no only public housing residents, but also market-rate units.
What he failed to mention is that his key financial backers–Tony Rezko, Cullen Davis, Valerie Jarrett–would benefit financially as well.
One final point. It is not unusual for people named in criminal complaints as “person A” or “person B” later wind up being indicted. In the Ali Ata complaint, for example, Governor Rod Blagojevich was Person A. Being listed as such does not guarantee you will be indicted but it also is not a get out of jail free card. There are more shoes to drop in the Blagojevich scandal and we should not be surprised that many will drop close to President-elect Barack Obama and his Chicago team.
I believe the most risk exists for Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, and Valerie Jarrett. This clearly is going to dampen the celebratory spirit surrounding the inauguration of Barack Obama.
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