April 18, 2006
Evelyn Pringle
Now that we've spent millions of tax dollars on the CIA leak investigation, here’s a new bit of information that adds a whole new twist to the saga.
According to a recent article by ace investigative reporter, Jason Leopold, Dick Cheney met with Bush in early June 2003, and told him that CIA agent Valerie Plame was the wife of Iraq war critic Joe Wilson and that she was responsible for sending Joe on a fact-finding mission to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from Africa.
And the chat wasn't limited to Bush and Cheney. “Other White House officials who also attended the meeting with Cheney and President Bush,” Jason reports, “included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her former deputy Stephen Hadley, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.”
Furthermore, Jason says, during the second half of June 2003, Rove, Card, and other officials from Cheney's office kept Bush apprised on the progress of the campaign to discredit Wilson, in emails and internal White House memos, no less, some of which were only recently turned over to the special prosecutor's office, Jason says.
No wonder Libby is so ticked off. Cheney and Bush got the ball rolling and the whole gang was involved in the planning and execution of the plot, yet Scooters the one on the outside looking in and facing a possible 30-year prison term.
So, the big question is, how many members of the Wilson-Plame-assassination-squad have been interviewed by the FBI, how many have testified under oath before the grand jury, and most importantly for Bush and Cheney, how many have been able to stick to the same story.
Jason says that 36 administration officials have been interviewed which means 36 people would have to stay on message and repeat the same talking points. This would take a miracle.
Also, according to Jason’s sources, during Bush's interview with the special prosecutor, he did not fess up to the fact that he was aware of the campaign to discredit Wilson and said he did not know who had leaked Valerie’s name to the media.
On June 24, 2004, Bush was interviewed for about 70 minutes. The only other member of the Bush team in the room during the meeting was Jim Sharp, the private lawyer that Bush hired, according to White House press secretary, Scott McClellan.
"The leaking of classified information is a very serious matter," McClellan told reporters at the time. "No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States," he said.
I like that line, "no one wants to get to the bottom of this matter" more than Bush.
Yea sure. In a book released around the same time as Bush's interview, Joe Wilson, pointed the finger at Scooter Libby as the leaker, and the White House not only adamantly denied the claim, it accused Wilson of trying to bolster John Kerry's campaign.
If its any consolation to Fitzgerald, the President's memory was no better on September 30, 2003, a year before his interview, when talking to reporters at the University of Chicago. Bush never once mentioned the little group-think sessions in the White House to them either.
Instead, he just kept repeating the same talking points until he sounded like a drunk three sheets to the wind. But then who knows, maybe he was.
In reading Bush's statements, its important to understand that the sole issue raised by reporters was the question of who leaked Valerie's identify to the media, nothing about classified documents or anything else. So every comment refers to that issue only.
When a reporter asked, “Do you think that the Justice Department can conduct an impartial investigation, considering the political ramifications of the CIA leak, and why wouldn't a special counsel be better?”
Bush completely skirted the question, and swung into his well-rehearsed talking points.
"Let me just say something about leaks in Washington," he said. "There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington," he told reporters.
"There's leaks at the executive branch," he said, "there's leaks in the legislative branch."
"There's just too many leaks," Bush stated. "And if there is a leak out of my administration," he said, "I want to know who it is."
But apparently here lies the catch-all legal loop-hole phrase. "And if the person has violated law,” Bush said, “the person will be taken care of.”
"I have told our administration, people in my administration to be fully cooperative," he assured reporters.
In light of Jason‘s findings above, this particular comment has me concerned that maybe Dick Cheney, Andy Card, Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, and Karl Rove are all deaf.
"I want to know the truth," the President proclaimed.
I found this statement extremely comical, coming from a pathological liar who cheated his way into the White House to begin with and then rigged the next election to get a second term.
That said, Bush put on an Oscar-winning performance for the reporters in Chicago when he was practically begging for anyone with information about the CIA leak to come forward.
"If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration," he said, "it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business."
When a reporter started to ask whether he had talked to Karl Rove and whether he had confidence in Karl....
The President cut him off and went right back to the talking points. "Listen," he stuttered, "I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."
"If somebody did leak classified information," he continued, "I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."
"And this investigation is a good thing," he lied through his teeth and said.
"And again I repeat," he said, like a broken record, "you know, Washington is a town where there's all kinds of allegations."
"You've heard much of the allegations," the President said. "And if people have got solid information," Bush pleaded again, "please come forward with it."
"And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources," he stuttered on, "or people outside the information -- outside the administration."
The guy almost sounds sincere when he says he wants to wrap the situation up quickly.
"And we can clarify this thing very quickly," Bush said, "if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out."
"And I would hope they would," he added. "And then we'll get to the bottom of this and move on."
He obviously was up all night rehearsing because he went right back to the mantra a third time about how, "leaks of classified information are a bad thing."
How there's "too much leaking in Washington," and on and on like a drunken slob.
"I've spoken out consistently against them," he said, "and I want to know who the leakers are."
I think Jason Leopold should go talk to Bush. The poor guy's been begging for somebody to come forward with this information for 3 years.
Showing posts with label Fitzgerald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fitzgerald. Show all posts
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Bush & Cheney Get Over On Fitzgerald
Evelyn Pringle April 10, 2006
With the latest revelations in the CIA leak case, the question on the minds of most Americans, is whether Bush and Cheney were the masterminds in an organized plot to destroy Joe Wilson by revealing his wife's name and status as a undercover agent of the CIA.
Hands down, yes they were. And a brilliant scheme it was; especially when one considers that the combined IQ of Bush and Cheney is probably not equal to that of a goat.
A concerted effort to destroy a critic is not a jailable offense. But it would seem that because they knew Valerie Plame was an under-cover operative, and knew the information was classified, that such a disclosure would be in legal terms "willful." In other words, a disclosure of information on purpose, even though they knew it was classified.
Although that may be true, being Bush and Cheney knew they were the culprits at the center of the investigation, they came up with a plan to hog-tie Prosecutor Fitzgerald and sabotage his investigation right from the start.
While it may appear that Bush stepped in to take the fall for Libby, don't believe it for one minute. Bush would never, never take a fall for anyone, probably not even his own mother. Or I should say for sure not his own mother, because he obviously has a lot of unresolved issues with her.
Bush stepped in because he was forced to by Libby's court filings. He knew this day would come but he also knew he was untouchable.
When Libby leaked the name of a CIA operative he released classified information, which would be a crime, if he acted on his own authority, as most of us believed. But now we find out that he was not acting on his own authority, he was acting under instructions from Cheney and Bush and thus, as it turns out, he did nothing illegal.
That is, until he lied, presumably to save the butts of Cheney and Bush. If Libby would have simply went before the grand jury and told the truth, the saga would have ended then and there and the public would have known the truth before the last Presidential election.
In covering for Bush, Libby's lies can be credited for giving Bush a second term. But a lot of good it did him. So long as Bush sticks to the story that unbeknownst to anyone, besides himself, Cheney and Libby, he had "declassified" certain information and told Cheney to instruct Libby to release it, Bush and Cheney walk, but Libby does not.
Fitzgerald knew this was going to happen and this is why it always seemed as if he was talking in circles when discussing Libby's indictment and why he continued to say over and over that Libby was not being charged with leaking the name of a CIA agent, and that furthermore, he did he plan to charge Libby with that crime.
Fitzgerald knows full well that the White House pulled a fast one on him.
He knew it shortly after his investigation got underway. But Libby is still going down, in part, probably because Fitzgerald is ticked off over being had. And in turn, this is why Libby is so ticked off, and why he is now trying to bring Bush and Cheney into the mix.
The "fast one" that got Bush and Cheney off the hook does not apply to him and its disclosure in court filings won't help one bit in defending against the charges he's facing.
Libby needs to accept the fact that he has officially been "hung out to dry."
Apparently, Bush can declassify any information he has a mind to at a minutes notice. Talk about not-so-subtle blackmail. This probably explains why other CIA employees have stayed in lockstep with the line that they did not feel pressured by the administration to hype or distort intelligence in the run up to war.
In fact, it probably explains a lot more about why this White House keeps getting away with murder.
With the latest revelations in the CIA leak case, the question on the minds of most Americans, is whether Bush and Cheney were the masterminds in an organized plot to destroy Joe Wilson by revealing his wife's name and status as a undercover agent of the CIA.
Hands down, yes they were. And a brilliant scheme it was; especially when one considers that the combined IQ of Bush and Cheney is probably not equal to that of a goat.
A concerted effort to destroy a critic is not a jailable offense. But it would seem that because they knew Valerie Plame was an under-cover operative, and knew the information was classified, that such a disclosure would be in legal terms "willful." In other words, a disclosure of information on purpose, even though they knew it was classified.
Although that may be true, being Bush and Cheney knew they were the culprits at the center of the investigation, they came up with a plan to hog-tie Prosecutor Fitzgerald and sabotage his investigation right from the start.
While it may appear that Bush stepped in to take the fall for Libby, don't believe it for one minute. Bush would never, never take a fall for anyone, probably not even his own mother. Or I should say for sure not his own mother, because he obviously has a lot of unresolved issues with her.
Bush stepped in because he was forced to by Libby's court filings. He knew this day would come but he also knew he was untouchable.
When Libby leaked the name of a CIA operative he released classified information, which would be a crime, if he acted on his own authority, as most of us believed. But now we find out that he was not acting on his own authority, he was acting under instructions from Cheney and Bush and thus, as it turns out, he did nothing illegal.
That is, until he lied, presumably to save the butts of Cheney and Bush. If Libby would have simply went before the grand jury and told the truth, the saga would have ended then and there and the public would have known the truth before the last Presidential election.
In covering for Bush, Libby's lies can be credited for giving Bush a second term. But a lot of good it did him. So long as Bush sticks to the story that unbeknownst to anyone, besides himself, Cheney and Libby, he had "declassified" certain information and told Cheney to instruct Libby to release it, Bush and Cheney walk, but Libby does not.
Fitzgerald knew this was going to happen and this is why it always seemed as if he was talking in circles when discussing Libby's indictment and why he continued to say over and over that Libby was not being charged with leaking the name of a CIA agent, and that furthermore, he did he plan to charge Libby with that crime.
Fitzgerald knows full well that the White House pulled a fast one on him.
He knew it shortly after his investigation got underway. But Libby is still going down, in part, probably because Fitzgerald is ticked off over being had. And in turn, this is why Libby is so ticked off, and why he is now trying to bring Bush and Cheney into the mix.
The "fast one" that got Bush and Cheney off the hook does not apply to him and its disclosure in court filings won't help one bit in defending against the charges he's facing.
Libby needs to accept the fact that he has officially been "hung out to dry."
Apparently, Bush can declassify any information he has a mind to at a minutes notice. Talk about not-so-subtle blackmail. This probably explains why other CIA employees have stayed in lockstep with the line that they did not feel pressured by the administration to hype or distort intelligence in the run up to war.
In fact, it probably explains a lot more about why this White House keeps getting away with murder.
Outing CIA Agent - Keep It Simple
Evelyn Pringle April 21, 2006
For all intent and purposes, the special prosecutor's duty in the CIA leak case is straightforward. How the investigation ever got so complicated is beyond me. Mr Fitzgerald needs to keep it simple.
Valerie Plame was a CIA agent in July 2003, and the fact that she was a CIA officer was classified. The responsibilities of some CIA employees require that their association with the agency be kept secret, because disclosure has the potential to damage national security in ways that range from preventing the future use of the agents, to compromising intelligence-gathering methods, to endangering the safety of CIA employees, and people who they may be associated with.
Valerie's status was not widely known. The special prosecutor verified that her friends, neighbors, and college classmates had no idea she had another life. Her cover was blown in July 2003. The first public outing was when Robert Novak published a story about Valerie and her husband Joe Wilson on July 14, 2003, noting her status as a CIA agent, and quoting senior administration officials as his sources.
The investigation really only required the answers to 3 basic questions: (1) which senior officials knew about Valerie's employment with the CIA? (2) did the officials know the CIA was protecting her identity? And (3) who leaked her name and status to the press?
We now know that just as many people suspected, Karl Rove was one of the sources for Novak. However, he may have published the first outing, but Novak was not the first reporter to learn that Joe's wife worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told earlier.
Because, also just as was suspected, Scooter Libby was the other leaker, and he was the first official to leak Valerie's name and status to the media when he told Judy Miller in June of 2003, after Dick Cheney leaked the information to him, with Bush's full approval and knowledge.
As a condition for working with classified information, on January 23, 2001, Libby signed a "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," which states in part: "I understand and accept that by being granted access to classified information, special confidence and trust shall be placed in me by the United States Government."
In signing the Agreement Libby goes on to state: "I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of classified information by me could cause damage or irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a foreign nation."
Scooter clearly violated this oath.
To begin with, it obvious that the White House did not follow the proper procedures for safeguarding Valerie's identity. Under EO 12958, the White House should have ensured that only those with a "need to know" had access to her covert identity.
It's a no-brainer, that as Bush's political advisor, Rove, should not have had access to the information. What compelling "need to know" would justify revealing her identity to him?
This little problem is probably what led to Rove's "promotion" a while back, just as his up-coming arrest is probably what led to his "demotion" yesterday.
As far as responding to the leak itself, under EO 12958, the White House should have taken prompt action to determine (1) whether nondisclosure agreements were violated; (2) whether individuals without security clearance obtained classified information; and (3) whether national security information was compromised.
But then no investigation was necessary because the Bush White House knew the answers to those questions before the first leak occurred.
By intentionally publicizing the fact that Valerie worked at the CIA, the administration not only destroyed her career, they compromised whatever operations she may have worked on, and whatever networks she may have established over her lengthily career with the agency and the tax dollars spent on the above went right down the sewer.
Early on in the investigation, the FBI interviewed Scooter. In addition to being Cheney's Chief of Staff at the time, he was also an Assistant to the President and Assistant to the Vice President for national security affairs.
According to filings in the criminal case, the focus of the FBI interview was on what Libby knew about Valerie, what he said to people about her, why he said it, and how he learned of the information.
He told the FBI that he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter, Tim Russert, on July 10, 2003, and during the call, Russert said, hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Wilson's wife works at the CIA.
Scooter said that he learned this information as if it was new, and that is why it 'struck him." Then, according to Scooter, he took the information from Russert and passed it on to Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, and New York Times reporter Judy Miller.
He told the FBI that on July 12, 2003, two days before Novak's column appeared in the press, that he passed the information on with the understanding that this was information he had received from a reporter, and that he didn't even know if it was true.
However, six months later in March 2004, when he testified before the grand jury on two occasions, Scooter added a new twist to his original tale. To the grand jury, Libby said that he had learned about Valerie from Cheney earlier in June 2003, but he had forgotten all about it; and so when he had learned the information from Russert, he'd learned it as if it were new.
Then Scooter said, he passed the information on to Cooper and Miller, later in the week.
However, we now know that Scooter discussed the fact that Valerie worked for the CIA, at least 6 times before the call with Russert ever took place, not to mention the fact that according to Tim, they never discussed Valerie at all during that call.
The bottom line is that Scooter did not learn about Valerie from Tim Russert.
In the Libby indictment, Fitzgerald says that on June 12, 2003, Cheney informed Libby that Valerie worked at the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division. The CPD is part of the operations directorate, the CIA's clandestine services.
In fact, the indictment says that Scooter learned of the information about Valeria from other administration officials as well in June of 2003. On
June 11, he learned about her from an Under Secretary of State and sometime prior to July 8, Scooter learned the information from someone else in Cheney's office. On June 14, 2003, he discussed the matter with a CIA briefer and was complaining that the CIA was leaking information or making critical comments about the administration and brought up Joe and Valerie to the briefer.
He also discussed the her at lunch with White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, on Monday, July 7, 2003, which means that we have Scooter telling Ari something on Monday that he claims to not have learned from Russert until Thursday.
There was also a discussion the next day on July 8, in which Scooter asked the Counsel for the Vice President what paperwork the CIA would have if an employee had a spouse going on a trip.
In the end, Scooter had 7 discussions with government officials prior to the day when he claims he learned the information as if it were new from Russert.
In addition, the story he gave to the FBI and grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and Miller on July 12. However, according to filings in the case, Scooter discussed Valerie at least 4 times with these reporters prior to July 14, 2003; three times with Miller, and once with Cooper.
The first discussion with Miller was on June 23; within days after an article was published online by The New Republic, quoting some critical comments from Wilson.
He spoke about Valerie with Miller again on July 8, in a discussion that was in background as a 'senior administration official," after which he instructed Miller to change the attribution to a "former Hill staffer."
During that conversation, Scooter said that Valerie was working for the CIA, and he discussed her employment status again with Miller on July 12.
In his conversations with Miller, Scooter never said this is what other reporters told me. He never said I don't know if it's true, or I don't even know if Wilson has a wife, according to Miller.
So, Rove and Scooter were the 2 administration officials who leaked the information to the press and the top officials in the Bush administration knew it from day one and allowed a charade of an investigation to stretch on for years on the tax payer's dime.
However, another cat is said to be ready to leap out of the bag and Rove's "demotion" yesterday is probably the least of his worries.
According to an article published today by investigative reporter, Jason Leopold, for Truthout.org, Fitzgerald is said to have presented more evidence alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was asked about how he found out that Valerie worked for the CIA and whether he gave that information to the media.
"Fitzgerald told the grand jury," Leopold said, "that Rove lied to investigators and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame Wilson's CIA status to at least two reporters."
Mr Fitzgerald needs to keep it simple, wrap up the investigation, and reserve a row of prison cells in Cuba.
For all intent and purposes, the special prosecutor's duty in the CIA leak case is straightforward. How the investigation ever got so complicated is beyond me. Mr Fitzgerald needs to keep it simple.
Valerie Plame was a CIA agent in July 2003, and the fact that she was a CIA officer was classified. The responsibilities of some CIA employees require that their association with the agency be kept secret, because disclosure has the potential to damage national security in ways that range from preventing the future use of the agents, to compromising intelligence-gathering methods, to endangering the safety of CIA employees, and people who they may be associated with.
Valerie's status was not widely known. The special prosecutor verified that her friends, neighbors, and college classmates had no idea she had another life. Her cover was blown in July 2003. The first public outing was when Robert Novak published a story about Valerie and her husband Joe Wilson on July 14, 2003, noting her status as a CIA agent, and quoting senior administration officials as his sources.
The investigation really only required the answers to 3 basic questions: (1) which senior officials knew about Valerie's employment with the CIA? (2) did the officials know the CIA was protecting her identity? And (3) who leaked her name and status to the press?
We now know that just as many people suspected, Karl Rove was one of the sources for Novak. However, he may have published the first outing, but Novak was not the first reporter to learn that Joe's wife worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told earlier.
Because, also just as was suspected, Scooter Libby was the other leaker, and he was the first official to leak Valerie's name and status to the media when he told Judy Miller in June of 2003, after Dick Cheney leaked the information to him, with Bush's full approval and knowledge.
As a condition for working with classified information, on January 23, 2001, Libby signed a "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," which states in part: "I understand and accept that by being granted access to classified information, special confidence and trust shall be placed in me by the United States Government."
In signing the Agreement Libby goes on to state: "I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of classified information by me could cause damage or irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a foreign nation."
Scooter clearly violated this oath.
To begin with, it obvious that the White House did not follow the proper procedures for safeguarding Valerie's identity. Under EO 12958, the White House should have ensured that only those with a "need to know" had access to her covert identity.
It's a no-brainer, that as Bush's political advisor, Rove, should not have had access to the information. What compelling "need to know" would justify revealing her identity to him?
This little problem is probably what led to Rove's "promotion" a while back, just as his up-coming arrest is probably what led to his "demotion" yesterday.
As far as responding to the leak itself, under EO 12958, the White House should have taken prompt action to determine (1) whether nondisclosure agreements were violated; (2) whether individuals without security clearance obtained classified information; and (3) whether national security information was compromised.
But then no investigation was necessary because the Bush White House knew the answers to those questions before the first leak occurred.
By intentionally publicizing the fact that Valerie worked at the CIA, the administration not only destroyed her career, they compromised whatever operations she may have worked on, and whatever networks she may have established over her lengthily career with the agency and the tax dollars spent on the above went right down the sewer.
Early on in the investigation, the FBI interviewed Scooter. In addition to being Cheney's Chief of Staff at the time, he was also an Assistant to the President and Assistant to the Vice President for national security affairs.
According to filings in the criminal case, the focus of the FBI interview was on what Libby knew about Valerie, what he said to people about her, why he said it, and how he learned of the information.
He told the FBI that he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter, Tim Russert, on July 10, 2003, and during the call, Russert said, hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Wilson's wife works at the CIA.
Scooter said that he learned this information as if it was new, and that is why it 'struck him." Then, according to Scooter, he took the information from Russert and passed it on to Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, and New York Times reporter Judy Miller.
He told the FBI that on July 12, 2003, two days before Novak's column appeared in the press, that he passed the information on with the understanding that this was information he had received from a reporter, and that he didn't even know if it was true.
However, six months later in March 2004, when he testified before the grand jury on two occasions, Scooter added a new twist to his original tale. To the grand jury, Libby said that he had learned about Valerie from Cheney earlier in June 2003, but he had forgotten all about it; and so when he had learned the information from Russert, he'd learned it as if it were new.
Then Scooter said, he passed the information on to Cooper and Miller, later in the week.
However, we now know that Scooter discussed the fact that Valerie worked for the CIA, at least 6 times before the call with Russert ever took place, not to mention the fact that according to Tim, they never discussed Valerie at all during that call.
The bottom line is that Scooter did not learn about Valerie from Tim Russert.
In the Libby indictment, Fitzgerald says that on June 12, 2003, Cheney informed Libby that Valerie worked at the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division. The CPD is part of the operations directorate, the CIA's clandestine services.
In fact, the indictment says that Scooter learned of the information about Valeria from other administration officials as well in June of 2003. On
June 11, he learned about her from an Under Secretary of State and sometime prior to July 8, Scooter learned the information from someone else in Cheney's office. On June 14, 2003, he discussed the matter with a CIA briefer and was complaining that the CIA was leaking information or making critical comments about the administration and brought up Joe and Valerie to the briefer.
He also discussed the her at lunch with White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, on Monday, July 7, 2003, which means that we have Scooter telling Ari something on Monday that he claims to not have learned from Russert until Thursday.
There was also a discussion the next day on July 8, in which Scooter asked the Counsel for the Vice President what paperwork the CIA would have if an employee had a spouse going on a trip.
In the end, Scooter had 7 discussions with government officials prior to the day when he claims he learned the information as if it were new from Russert.
In addition, the story he gave to the FBI and grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and Miller on July 12. However, according to filings in the case, Scooter discussed Valerie at least 4 times with these reporters prior to July 14, 2003; three times with Miller, and once with Cooper.
The first discussion with Miller was on June 23; within days after an article was published online by The New Republic, quoting some critical comments from Wilson.
He spoke about Valerie with Miller again on July 8, in a discussion that was in background as a 'senior administration official," after which he instructed Miller to change the attribution to a "former Hill staffer."
During that conversation, Scooter said that Valerie was working for the CIA, and he discussed her employment status again with Miller on July 12.
In his conversations with Miller, Scooter never said this is what other reporters told me. He never said I don't know if it's true, or I don't even know if Wilson has a wife, according to Miller.
So, Rove and Scooter were the 2 administration officials who leaked the information to the press and the top officials in the Bush administration knew it from day one and allowed a charade of an investigation to stretch on for years on the tax payer's dime.
However, another cat is said to be ready to leap out of the bag and Rove's "demotion" yesterday is probably the least of his worries.
According to an article published today by investigative reporter, Jason Leopold, for Truthout.org, Fitzgerald is said to have presented more evidence alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was asked about how he found out that Valerie worked for the CIA and whether he gave that information to the media.
"Fitzgerald told the grand jury," Leopold said, "that Rove lied to investigators and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame Wilson's CIA status to at least two reporters."
Mr Fitzgerald needs to keep it simple, wrap up the investigation, and reserve a row of prison cells in Cuba.
Karl Rove Indictment Long Overdue
Evelyn Pringle May 3, 2006
On April 28, 2006, Jason Leopold, an investigative journalist who has consistently forecast up-coming events in the CIA leak case far in advance of the mainstream media, is citing "sources knowledgeable about the probe" in reporting that:
"Despite vehement denials by his attorney who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week."
For most Americans, this bit of news will be viewed as long overdue.
The criminal indictment filed by the grand jury against Scooter Libby leaves no doubt about who leaked what and when. It states that on or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, Libby spoke to “Official A," who we now know is Rove, who advised Libby of "a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson’s wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson’s trip."
Libby was also advised, "by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson’s wife," the indictment notes.
Rove succeeded in convincing Novak to print the story about Wilson and his wife even though Novak was informed that the story was false. Former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow has testified before the grand jury about conversations that he had with Novak 3 days before the column was published and said that he told Novak that Wilson's wife had not authorized the trip and that if he did write an article, Novak should not reveal her name.
After the first conversation with Novak, Harlow said he checked Valerie's status to confirm that she was an undercover agent and called Novak back to say again that the story relayed to Novak was not true and that her name should not be revealed.
Administration officials like to send out talking heads to minimize the damage caused by the leak by trying to debate the issue of whether Valerie's CIA status was classified. During his October 28, 2005, press conference, when announcing the Libby indictment, Fitzgerald left no doubt about whether her status was classified, when he told reporters:
"Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.
"The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security. Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003."
For 18 years Valerie had kept her occupation a secret. She worked under the cover of a CIA front company created and maintained at the taxpayer's expense, and all of that was destroyed by Bush administration officials at the highest levels when they leaked her identity.
In hindsight, its obvious that the leaks by Rove and Libby were the beginning of a White House scheme to pin the blame on the CIA for providing faulty intelligence and to take the focus off the forged documents used to insert the Iraq-uranium claim into the mix in the first place
But the overall plot goes much deeper than that. In peddling the story to reporters, a fact not known to most Americans is that Rove and Libby leaked the identity of a CIA agent who happened to be an expert on WMDs at a time when the US had supposedly went to war to eliminate the threat of such weapons being used against our country.
Melissa Mahle spent 14 years as a covert CIA agent maintaining a series of fictitious cover stories, invented by her superiors. On the October 30, 2005, segment of 60 Minutes, Mahle reported that Valerie was working on important national security issues, like keeping tabs on nuclear material and the world’s top nuclear scientists.
“She is an expert on weapons of mass destruction," Mahle said. "These are the kind of people that don't grow on trees.”
What do agents do in that division, she was asked.
“They're trying to figure out, really, the hard questions of who has the capability obtaining and deploying a biological weapon. Or a chemical weapon. Who's doing it? What are those networks? What are the financial trails?” Mahle said during the broadcast."
It is now known that Valerie was monitoring Iran's nuclear activities. According to Raw Story investigative reporter, Larisa Alexandrovna, former intelligence officials, have said that Valerie "worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran."
"The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work," Alexandrovna wrote, "raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration."
On May 1, 2006, the Chris Matthews' show, Hardball, on MSNBC confirmed what Alexandrovna reported in February in 2006, that Valerie was working on Iran's WMD network at the time she was outed.
On July 27, 2005, the Boston Globe described what happens when a CIA agent's cover is blown and said in part:
"Whenever a spy's cover is revealed, a chain of setbacks ensues. Foreign intelligence services then review everything they know about the undercover officer who was operating in their country. Such a review can lead not only to the discovery of informants who may have been recruited by the outed CIA officer but also to an understanding of the practices and techniques used by an undercover figure such as Plame, who posed as a businesswoman abroad.
"After one undercover CIA officer is exposed, others inevitably have a harder time persuading potential sources to pass secrets about their government's -- or their terrorist network's -- plans and capabilities."
In recent years, Valerie told people she worked for an energy consulting firm by the name of Brewster-Jennings & Associates and Novak disclosed that fact to the world on CNN when he said, "she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."
"There is no such firm, I'm convinced,” Novak added.
Upon the public exposure of this information, former CIA agents report that intelligence agencies all over the world would have started searching the data bases for any mention of Valerie or the firm and that over the years, hundreds of agents have worked under the cover of Brewster-Jennings.
On October 5, 2003, Valerie was described as a "NOC" in the New York Times by Elisabeth Bumiller, who explained what a NOC position entails and how the leaking of her identity was viewed by members of the CIA in general:
"But within the C.I.A., the exposure of Ms. Plame is now considered an even greater instance of treachery. Ms. Plame, a specialist in non-conventional weapons who worked overseas, had "nonofficial cover," and was what in C.I.A. parlance is called a NOC, the most difficult kind of false identity for the agency to create.
"While most undercover agency officers disguise their real profession by pretending to be American embassy diplomats or other United States government employees, Ms. Plame passed herself off as a private energy expert."
Writing for Salon magazine in October 2003, Nixon White House Counsel, John Dean, of Watergate fame, discusses how the Bush administration's conduct trumps that of former President Nixon:
"I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush's people have out-Nixoned Nixon's people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means."
At the time of Valerie outing, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie basically agreed with Dean in saying that the disclosure of Plame's name could be worse than Watergate "in terms of the real-world implications of it."
In taking the drastic step of a court compelling reporters to testify, US Appellate Judge David Tatel, in his February 15, 2005 opinion also noted the seriousness of the crime in stating that the vast majority of the states, as well as the Justice Department, "would require us to protect reporters' sources as a matter of federal common law were the leak at issue either less harmful or more newsworthy."
However, Judge Tatel added, "just as attorney-client communications made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime serve no public interest and receive no privilege, neither should courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while providing minimal benefit to public debate."
A question seldom asked is how did Valerie take the news when she learned of Novak's column.
“She felt like she had been hit in the stomach," her husband Joe Wilson said on the October 30, 2005, 60 Minutes program. "It took her breath away," he said.
"She recovered quickly because," Wilson explained, "you don't do what she did for a living without understanding stress."
"And she became very matter of fact right afterwards," he said, "started making lists of what she had to do to ensure that her assets, her projects, her programs and her operations were protected."
“Did she realize then that her career as an undercover agent for the CIA was over?” interviewer Ed Bradley asked Wilson.
“Absolutely. Sure," he replied. "There was no doubt about it in her mind."
"And she wondered for what,” he added.
Fitzgerald and Libby's lawyers are currently fighting over Libby's discovery requests for a wide variety of documents. In a January 9, 2006 letter to Libby's legal team, Fitzgerald responded to a request for documents that assess the damage caused by the outing, and wrote: "A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document."
"Moreover," Fitzgerald said in a brief filed in the case, "the publication of any informal assessment of actual damage caused by the leak could compound the damage by disclosing intelligence sources and methods."
However, 3 intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to Larisa Alexandrovna, of Raw Story, said that while undercover, Valerie was involved in identifying and tracking WMD technology to and from Iran and that her outing compromised the identities of other covert operatives as well.
As a result, the officials said that CIA work on WMDs had been set back "ten years."
When the Libby indictment was handed down and it became known that Rove had definitely participated in blowing Valerie's cover, 16 former CIA and military intelligence officials petitioned Bush to suspend Rove's security clearance and Bush refused to grant their request.
After it became public that Rove was involved in the leak, on July 15, 2005, ninety-one Democrats in Congress signed a letter to Bush calling for Rove to explain his role in the leak or to resign, and 13 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee called for hearings on the matter.
To this day, Karl Rove remains unpunished and still has security clearance.
In his column, Novak included another highly significant statement that seemingly escaped much publicity probably due to the outrage over the outing of a CIA agent, when he said:
"Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it."
The forged documents did not make their way to the White House by way of a few journalists peddling misinformation. The forgeries ended up in the hands of the same people who were responsible for their origin, officials at the highest level of Bush administration.
On August 1 and 2, 2004, both the Sunday Times and Financial Times in the UK reported that a con-man by the name of Rocco Martino admitted that he was involved in disseminating the false stories and documents but said the US and Italian governments were behind the disinformation operation.
"It's true, I had a hand in the dissemination of those documents," Martino said, "but I was duped."
"Both Americans and Italians were involved behind the scenes," he said. "It was a disinformation operation."
In July 2005, an Italian parliamentary report was issued on the forged documents and listed the 4 men likely involved as: Michael Ledeen, Dewey Clarridge (CIA operative in Iran-Contra Affair), Ahmed Chalabi, and Francis Brookes (member of a "public relations" body formed by the Pentagon to promote Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress).
The report said the forgeries may have been planned at a meeting in Rome in December 2001, attended by Ledeen and Larry Franklin.
Franklin is the Pentagon Iran analyst who earned a lengthily prison sentence last year for passing classified information to former officials with the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC. Franklin worked closely with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith in the Office of Special Plans whose main purpose was to manufacture bogus intelligence to bolster the case for war.
On April 12, 2005, the Al Jazeera news organization reported that when the former CIA head of counter-terrorism, Vincent Cannistaro, was asked whether Michael Ledeen had been the one who produced the forged documents, he replied, "You'd be very close."
In holding off on charging Rove, it may just be that Fitzgerald is looking at much bigger fish to fry. On October 23, 2005, UPI editor Martin Walker cited "NATO intelligence sources" as saying, "Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.”
The special prosecutor's team is said to have been provided with the full report on the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the forgeries.
“This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case,” UPI explains, “that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated."
With any luck, Fitzgerald will do the right thing and file criminal charges against all of the high-level officials involved in the fabrication and dissemination of bogus intelligence that convinced Americans to allow Bush to wage the ill-fated war against Iraq. Hopefully, starting with the guy sitting in the oval office.
On April 28, 2006, Jason Leopold, an investigative journalist who has consistently forecast up-coming events in the CIA leak case far in advance of the mainstream media, is citing "sources knowledgeable about the probe" in reporting that:
"Despite vehement denials by his attorney who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a "target" nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week."
For most Americans, this bit of news will be viewed as long overdue.
The criminal indictment filed by the grand jury against Scooter Libby leaves no doubt about who leaked what and when. It states that on or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, Libby spoke to “Official A," who we now know is Rove, who advised Libby of "a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson’s wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson’s trip."
Libby was also advised, "by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson’s wife," the indictment notes.
Rove succeeded in convincing Novak to print the story about Wilson and his wife even though Novak was informed that the story was false. Former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow has testified before the grand jury about conversations that he had with Novak 3 days before the column was published and said that he told Novak that Wilson's wife had not authorized the trip and that if he did write an article, Novak should not reveal her name.
After the first conversation with Novak, Harlow said he checked Valerie's status to confirm that she was an undercover agent and called Novak back to say again that the story relayed to Novak was not true and that her name should not be revealed.
Administration officials like to send out talking heads to minimize the damage caused by the leak by trying to debate the issue of whether Valerie's CIA status was classified. During his October 28, 2005, press conference, when announcing the Libby indictment, Fitzgerald left no doubt about whether her status was classified, when he told reporters:
"Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.
"The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security. Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003."
For 18 years Valerie had kept her occupation a secret. She worked under the cover of a CIA front company created and maintained at the taxpayer's expense, and all of that was destroyed by Bush administration officials at the highest levels when they leaked her identity.
In hindsight, its obvious that the leaks by Rove and Libby were the beginning of a White House scheme to pin the blame on the CIA for providing faulty intelligence and to take the focus off the forged documents used to insert the Iraq-uranium claim into the mix in the first place
But the overall plot goes much deeper than that. In peddling the story to reporters, a fact not known to most Americans is that Rove and Libby leaked the identity of a CIA agent who happened to be an expert on WMDs at a time when the US had supposedly went to war to eliminate the threat of such weapons being used against our country.
Melissa Mahle spent 14 years as a covert CIA agent maintaining a series of fictitious cover stories, invented by her superiors. On the October 30, 2005, segment of 60 Minutes, Mahle reported that Valerie was working on important national security issues, like keeping tabs on nuclear material and the world’s top nuclear scientists.
“She is an expert on weapons of mass destruction," Mahle said. "These are the kind of people that don't grow on trees.”
What do agents do in that division, she was asked.
“They're trying to figure out, really, the hard questions of who has the capability obtaining and deploying a biological weapon. Or a chemical weapon. Who's doing it? What are those networks? What are the financial trails?” Mahle said during the broadcast."
It is now known that Valerie was monitoring Iran's nuclear activities. According to Raw Story investigative reporter, Larisa Alexandrovna, former intelligence officials, have said that Valerie "worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran."
"The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work," Alexandrovna wrote, "raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration."
On May 1, 2006, the Chris Matthews' show, Hardball, on MSNBC confirmed what Alexandrovna reported in February in 2006, that Valerie was working on Iran's WMD network at the time she was outed.
On July 27, 2005, the Boston Globe described what happens when a CIA agent's cover is blown and said in part:
"Whenever a spy's cover is revealed, a chain of setbacks ensues. Foreign intelligence services then review everything they know about the undercover officer who was operating in their country. Such a review can lead not only to the discovery of informants who may have been recruited by the outed CIA officer but also to an understanding of the practices and techniques used by an undercover figure such as Plame, who posed as a businesswoman abroad.
"After one undercover CIA officer is exposed, others inevitably have a harder time persuading potential sources to pass secrets about their government's -- or their terrorist network's -- plans and capabilities."
In recent years, Valerie told people she worked for an energy consulting firm by the name of Brewster-Jennings & Associates and Novak disclosed that fact to the world on CNN when he said, "she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."
"There is no such firm, I'm convinced,” Novak added.
Upon the public exposure of this information, former CIA agents report that intelligence agencies all over the world would have started searching the data bases for any mention of Valerie or the firm and that over the years, hundreds of agents have worked under the cover of Brewster-Jennings.
On October 5, 2003, Valerie was described as a "NOC" in the New York Times by Elisabeth Bumiller, who explained what a NOC position entails and how the leaking of her identity was viewed by members of the CIA in general:
"But within the C.I.A., the exposure of Ms. Plame is now considered an even greater instance of treachery. Ms. Plame, a specialist in non-conventional weapons who worked overseas, had "nonofficial cover," and was what in C.I.A. parlance is called a NOC, the most difficult kind of false identity for the agency to create.
"While most undercover agency officers disguise their real profession by pretending to be American embassy diplomats or other United States government employees, Ms. Plame passed herself off as a private energy expert."
Writing for Salon magazine in October 2003, Nixon White House Counsel, John Dean, of Watergate fame, discusses how the Bush administration's conduct trumps that of former President Nixon:
"I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush's people have out-Nixoned Nixon's people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means."
At the time of Valerie outing, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie basically agreed with Dean in saying that the disclosure of Plame's name could be worse than Watergate "in terms of the real-world implications of it."
In taking the drastic step of a court compelling reporters to testify, US Appellate Judge David Tatel, in his February 15, 2005 opinion also noted the seriousness of the crime in stating that the vast majority of the states, as well as the Justice Department, "would require us to protect reporters' sources as a matter of federal common law were the leak at issue either less harmful or more newsworthy."
However, Judge Tatel added, "just as attorney-client communications made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime serve no public interest and receive no privilege, neither should courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while providing minimal benefit to public debate."
A question seldom asked is how did Valerie take the news when she learned of Novak's column.
“She felt like she had been hit in the stomach," her husband Joe Wilson said on the October 30, 2005, 60 Minutes program. "It took her breath away," he said.
"She recovered quickly because," Wilson explained, "you don't do what she did for a living without understanding stress."
"And she became very matter of fact right afterwards," he said, "started making lists of what she had to do to ensure that her assets, her projects, her programs and her operations were protected."
“Did she realize then that her career as an undercover agent for the CIA was over?” interviewer Ed Bradley asked Wilson.
“Absolutely. Sure," he replied. "There was no doubt about it in her mind."
"And she wondered for what,” he added.
Fitzgerald and Libby's lawyers are currently fighting over Libby's discovery requests for a wide variety of documents. In a January 9, 2006 letter to Libby's legal team, Fitzgerald responded to a request for documents that assess the damage caused by the outing, and wrote: "A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document."
"Moreover," Fitzgerald said in a brief filed in the case, "the publication of any informal assessment of actual damage caused by the leak could compound the damage by disclosing intelligence sources and methods."
However, 3 intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to Larisa Alexandrovna, of Raw Story, said that while undercover, Valerie was involved in identifying and tracking WMD technology to and from Iran and that her outing compromised the identities of other covert operatives as well.
As a result, the officials said that CIA work on WMDs had been set back "ten years."
When the Libby indictment was handed down and it became known that Rove had definitely participated in blowing Valerie's cover, 16 former CIA and military intelligence officials petitioned Bush to suspend Rove's security clearance and Bush refused to grant their request.
After it became public that Rove was involved in the leak, on July 15, 2005, ninety-one Democrats in Congress signed a letter to Bush calling for Rove to explain his role in the leak or to resign, and 13 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee called for hearings on the matter.
To this day, Karl Rove remains unpunished and still has security clearance.
In his column, Novak included another highly significant statement that seemingly escaped much publicity probably due to the outrage over the outing of a CIA agent, when he said:
"Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it."
The forged documents did not make their way to the White House by way of a few journalists peddling misinformation. The forgeries ended up in the hands of the same people who were responsible for their origin, officials at the highest level of Bush administration.
On August 1 and 2, 2004, both the Sunday Times and Financial Times in the UK reported that a con-man by the name of Rocco Martino admitted that he was involved in disseminating the false stories and documents but said the US and Italian governments were behind the disinformation operation.
"It's true, I had a hand in the dissemination of those documents," Martino said, "but I was duped."
"Both Americans and Italians were involved behind the scenes," he said. "It was a disinformation operation."
In July 2005, an Italian parliamentary report was issued on the forged documents and listed the 4 men likely involved as: Michael Ledeen, Dewey Clarridge (CIA operative in Iran-Contra Affair), Ahmed Chalabi, and Francis Brookes (member of a "public relations" body formed by the Pentagon to promote Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress).
The report said the forgeries may have been planned at a meeting in Rome in December 2001, attended by Ledeen and Larry Franklin.
Franklin is the Pentagon Iran analyst who earned a lengthily prison sentence last year for passing classified information to former officials with the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC. Franklin worked closely with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith in the Office of Special Plans whose main purpose was to manufacture bogus intelligence to bolster the case for war.
On April 12, 2005, the Al Jazeera news organization reported that when the former CIA head of counter-terrorism, Vincent Cannistaro, was asked whether Michael Ledeen had been the one who produced the forged documents, he replied, "You'd be very close."
In holding off on charging Rove, it may just be that Fitzgerald is looking at much bigger fish to fry. On October 23, 2005, UPI editor Martin Walker cited "NATO intelligence sources" as saying, "Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.”
The special prosecutor's team is said to have been provided with the full report on the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the forgeries.
“This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case,” UPI explains, “that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated."
With any luck, Fitzgerald will do the right thing and file criminal charges against all of the high-level officials involved in the fabrication and dissemination of bogus intelligence that convinced Americans to allow Bush to wage the ill-fated war against Iraq. Hopefully, starting with the guy sitting in the oval office.
Rove and Fitzgerald Play Monopoly
Evelyn Pringle May 15, 2006
How many more get-out-of-jail free cards does Karl Rove get? Eat your heart out Martha Stewart. You should have tried playing Monopoly with the G-Men.
On October 28 2005, the office of the Special Prosecutor released a press statement which stated in part:
"A major focus of the grand jury investigation was to determine which government officials had disclosed to the media prior to July 14, 2003, information concerning Valerie Wilson's CIA affiliation, and the nature, timing, extent, and purpose of such disclosures, as well as whether any official made such a disclosure knowing that Valerie Wilson's employment by the CIA was classified information."
Somebody needs to inform Fitzgerald that "we got em." Kind of like Bush in Poland when he announced finding two trailers in Iraq and said that they had found the WMDs that Colin Powell had referred to in his speech at the UN.
Hey Mr Fitzgerald, as for those government officials you've been looking for, we found em. Surprise, surprise, its Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.
When reading the criminal indictment against Libby, its clear that Karl Rove and Libby each told reporters about Valerie Plame's status as a CIA agent before Novak's column was published, albeit Libby did it first on June 23, 2003, when he told Judy Miller from the New York Times.
That is, first as far as we know anyways, because after close to a 3-year tax dollar funded investigation, it has since been revealed that Bob Woodward, of the Washington Post, was told of Valerie's CIA status reportedly before Libby and Rove made the revelations to Miller, Cooper or Novak.
But as the law applies to Libby and Rove, it doesn't matter who leaked first, because they still violated the "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," Form SF-312, that they signed as a condition of employment which prohibits even confirming or repeating classified information already leaked. The briefing book that comes with the form states in relevant part:
Before confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not, confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.
By now, a lot of people are wondering why it is that Libby is arrested and Rove is not. It's probably due to a variety of reasons.
On August 13, 2005, journalist, Murray Waas, reported that back in 2003, officials from the Justice Department and the FBI recommended the appointment of a special prosecutor because they felt that Rove had not been truthful about his conversation with Cooper, nor in claiming that he had first heard of Valerie's identity from a reporter whose name he could not remember.
At the time, Rove maintained that he had only spoken about Valerie to reporters after her identity had already become public. But we now know that Rove and Libby were the sources for Cooper's article in Time Magazine, published 3 days after Novak's column which cited unnamed government officials, when describing Valerie as a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
So again why is Libby the only one arrested? His only variation from the agreed upon talking points was when he added the name Tim Russert to "the reporter-told-me" story, while Rove stuck to the line that he could not remember the reporter’s name.
For one thing, when the investigation began, I suspect that it's highly unlikely that Libby had any of the top dogs at the Justice Department in his back pocket. Whereas Rove reportedly raked in over $750,000 in consulting fees for working on prior campaigns for John Ashcroft, the reigning Attorney General at the time, and with a political hatchet man like Rove involved, who knows how many skeletons could be buried along those campaign trails.
Ashcroft is said to have been briefed on at least one of Rove's interviews with the FBI. That briefing probably led to the first get-out-of-jail-free card for Rove.
But even with the FBI breathing down his neck, in February 2004, Rove twice went before the grand jury and lied through his teeth. He refused to admit that he had spoken to Novak about Valerie before she was outed, and he denied talking with Cooper period.
However, on December 2, 2005, the New York Times, reported that a conversation between Rove's lawyer and "a journalist for Time magazine led Mr. Rove to change his testimony last year to the grand jury in the C.I.A. leak case."
Which means Rove received another get-out-of-jail-free card in this instance.
According to Time Magazine journalist, Viveca Novak's article titled, "What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald," on December 10, 2003, her visits and conversations Attorney Robert Luskin began innocently enough.
"In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on," she wrote. "I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation," Viveca said.
"Well," Luskin reportedly told her, "you're sitting next to Karl Rove's lawyer."
"I began spending a little more time than usual with Luskin as I tried to keep track of the investigation," Viveca explained.
Sometime during the week of October 18, 2005, which Viveca refers to as "indictment week," she says, Luskin "phoned me and said he had disclosed to Fitzgerald the content of a conversation he and I had had at Cafe Deluxe more than a year earlier and that Fitzgerald might want to talk to me."
According to Viveca, she did meet with Fitzgerald on November 10, 2005, for about two hours after her attorney advised Fitzgerald that she would discuss only her interactions with Luskin that were relevant to the conversation in question, with no "fishing expeditions, no questions about my other reporting or sources in the case," she wrote.
Fitzgerald agreed to the conditions, she said, and advised her lawyer that he wanted to "remove the chicken bone without disturbing the body."
During the meeting, Fitzgerald asked if Luskin had ever talked to Viveca about whether Rove was Cooper's source on the topic of Wilson's wife.
"That was the "chicken bone" Fitzgerald had referred to," Viveca wrote.
Here is what happened according to her first-person account of her visits with Luskin as to what was discussed about Rove and Cooper:
"Toward the end of one of our meetings," she said, "I remember Luskin looking at me and saying something to the effect of "Karl doesn't have a Cooper problem. He was not a source for Matt."
"I responded instinctively," Viveca wrote, "thinking he was trying to spin me, and said something like, "Are you sure about that? That's not what I hear around TIME."
"He looked surprised and very serious," she said. "There's nothing in the phone logs," Luskin told Viveca.
"In the course of the investigation, the logs of all Rove's calls around the July 2003 time period," Viveca wrote, "had been combed, and Luskin was telling me there were no references to Matt."
Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, its apparent that Rove realized the importance of covering his tracks while he was leaking to reporters in the summer of 2003. Here lies the missing link to this puzzle.
In a November 28, 2005, article in Raw Story, Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna, who have doggedly investigated this matter, reported that Rove’s former personal assistant, Susan Ralston, whose job it was to screen Rove’s phone calls at the White House, had previously testified that Cooper’s call to Rove was not logged in because Cooper had called through the White House switchboard and was transferred to Rove’s office, as opposed to calling Rove’s office directly.
But citing “those close to the probe,” the Raw Story article noted, “that Fitzgerald obtained documentary evidence showing that other unrelated calls transferred to Rove’s office by the switchboard were logged.”
In addition, in a July 25, 2005, Time Magazine article titled, "What I Told The Grand Jury," Cooper recounts his recollection of what happened when he called the White House.
"I recall calling Rove from my office at TIME magazine," Cooper wrote, "through the White House switchboard and being transferred to his office."
"I believe a woman answered the phone and said words to the effect that Rove wasn't there or was busy before going on vacation," he said.
"But then, I recall," Cooper said, "she said something like, "Hang on," and I was transferred to him."
"I recall," Cooper wrote, "saying something like, "I'm writing about Wilson," before he interjected, "Don't get too far out on Wilson."
No doubt in light of these discoveries, Fitzgerald invited Ms Ralston for a return engagement with the grand jury.
According to Raw Story, while testifying the second time, Ralston said that Rove instructed her not to log in the call from Cooper and she also provided information about other calls between Rove and reporters, including Robert Novak.
It should be noted here that Ms Ralston was hired by Rove after she came highly recommended from his good friend: Jack Abramoff, for whom Ms Ralston performed similar duties "-- that is until Abramoff realized she'd be far more useful embedded in the West Wing," according to Rolling Stone Magazine.
After his chat with Viveca, Attorney Luskin reportedly orchestrated a search for any record of a conversation between Rove and Cooper and low and behold, an e-mail from Rove to senior White House official, Stephen Hadley surfaced, that provided detail of a conversation between Rove and Cooper that took place before Valerie was outed by Robert Novak.
There has been much speculation about when the Rove-Hadley email was found and when it was turned over to Fitzgerald. In her December 19, article, Viveca claims that she did not find out until the fall of 2005, that her remark to Luskin had led to a search for evidence that Rove and Cooper had talked.
"According to Luskin," Viveca wrote in the article, "he turned the e-mail over to Fitzgerald when he found it, leading Rove to acknowledge before the grand jury in October 2004 that he had indeed spoken with Cooper."
The fact that Rove was not charged on the spot for this slick trick, shows that he got another get-out-of-jail-free card because he had been ordered to turn over all emails to the special prosecutor just like everyone else in the White House.
"On October 3, 2003," according to a memo authored by Andy Card, then White House Chief of Staff, "every employee in the Executive Office of the President received instructions from Counsel's office about obligations to search for and provide documents that may be related to the Justice Department's investigation."
In addition, the subpoenas issued by Fitzgerald to the White House called for, among other things:
1) All documents from February 1, 2002 through 2003 related to Plame, Wilson's trip to Niger, or to contacts with journalists.
2) All documents from July 6 to July 21, 2003 from the White House Iraq Group (of which Libby, Hadley, and Rove were members).
3) All documents relating to conversations with Matt Cooper of Time Magazine.
According to reporter, Jason Leopold, neither Hadley nor Rove disclosed the communication about Valerie when they were questioned by the FBI, or testified to the grand jury.
Rove said that he found out about Valerie from reporters, and, "Hadley testified that he recalled learning about Plame Wilson when her name was published in a newspaper column," Leopold said.
As it turns out, the email to Hadley was sent within minutes after Rove spoke to Cooper on July 11, 2003, and included the comments: “Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he’s got a welfare reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn’t this damaging? Hasn’t the president been hurt? I didn’t take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn’t get Time far out in front on this.”
In February 2006, Fitzgerald informed Libby's attorneys that the White House had turned over about 250 pages of previously undisclosed e-mails from the Cheney's office, which have no doubt provided hours of interesting reading for the prosecutor's team.
With his feet to the fire, on October 15, 2004, Rove marched back into the grand jury to change his story and say that he must have discussed Valerie with Cooper after all, because the e-mail established that he had in fact had a conversation with Cooper.
That day, Viveca Novak wrote a web exclusive for Time and quoted her drinking buddy, Luskin as saying: "My client appeared voluntarily before the grand jury and has cooperated with the investigation since it began."
In the article, Viveca mentions a question to which she knows the answer but doesn't share it with her readers. "Fitzgerald is trying to find out who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative married to former ambassador Joe Wilson, to several journalists in July 2003," she wrote.
In December 2005, Luskin testified that his meeting with Viveca where he learned about the Rove-Cooper connection, took place in late January or early February 2004, the same month in which Rove had reportedly testified twice and Fitzgerald had sought the authority to prosecute officials if they were found to have obstructed his investigation.
However the problem is that Viveca, says she thinks the conversation took place in either March or May 2004.
But a more pressing dilemma for Viveca personally, has turned out to be that she continued to write articles on the leak case without informing her boss at Time Magazine about her insider knowledge of the facts.
According to the April 27, 2006, New York Times, Viveca no longer works for Time. "She left the magazine after a dispute over her role in the case," the NYT's said, "taking a buyout package last month."
So it looks like another journalist bites the dust in the wake of the illegal conduct by the White House. After a 20-some year tenure, Judy Miller got the boot from the New York Times for not revealing her involvement with the Libby to her boss. Bob Novak got hot under the collar when asked a question about his part in the case and walked of a live broadcast on CNN and got canned, and even Bob Woodward is said to have fallen off his pedestal at the Washington Post.
Yet as the body-count rises, Karl Rove is always seen smiling like a cat that just ate a canary and knows he got away with it.
Why Rove waited some five or six months to correct his testimony with the grand jury is said to be a mystery but it may simply be that when Luskin gave him the news that he was busted, Cooper was still refusing to identify Rove as his source and so he decided to run out the clock and bet the farm.
What could he lose? The odds were good. The Supreme Court had certainly demonstrated its allegiance to the Bush team in the past.
When the lower court ordered Cooper to testify, just as expected, Time appealed the decision all the way to the High Court but was unsuccessful.
But in this case, Rove had the most to lose.
On July 13, 2005, Cooper appeared before the grand jury and informed the panel that Rove was the official who told him that Valerie was employed at the CIA, and the panel already knew that Libby was the other source.
According to Cooper, his conversation with Rove was the first time he had heard anything about Wilson’s wife. In addition, Rove had told Cooper that more information that would discredit Wilson and his findings in Niger would soon be declassified.
In a July 25, 2005, article discussing his testimony, in Time Magazine, Cooper wrote: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes."
"Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes," he said.
"When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know," Cooper wrote.
Cooper also told the grand jury that he had a distinct memory of Rove ending the phone call by saying, “I’ve already said too much.”
Over this time period, Rove got dealt a whole deck of get-out-of-jail-free cards.
After it became known that Rove was indeed Cooper's secret source, on July 15, 2005, ninety-one Democrats in Congress signed a letter to Bush calling for Rove to explain his role in the leak, or to resign and 13 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee called for hearings on the matter.
When the Libby indictment was issued, and it became known that Rove had definitely participated in blowing Valerie's cover, 16 former CIA and military intelligence officials petitioned Bush to suspend Rove's security clearance and Bush refused to grant their request.
Karl Rove still has security clearance to this very day.
The granting of this free pass becomes all the more obvious when compared to what happened to former Clinton advisor, Sandy Berger, in 2003, when he took classified documents from the National Archives, to prepare to testify before the 9/11 Commission. In order to settle the case, Berger had to plead guilty to mishandling of documents in violation of the Espionage Act, and his security clearance was suspended for 3 years.
In the grand jury sessions, press aides were reportedly confronted with internal White House documents, mainly e-mails and telephone logs, between White House aides and reporters and were questioned about conversations with reporters.
According to the New York Times, the set of documents that prosecutors repeatedly referred to in their meetings with White House aides are extensive notes compiled by none other than Scooter Libby.
The logs indicate that several White House officials talked to Novak shortly before the appearance of his July 14 column, the Washington Post reported.
That said, it should be interesting to see how many more get-out-of-jail-free cards Fitzgerald has up his sleeve and how they get distributed.
How many more get-out-of-jail free cards does Karl Rove get? Eat your heart out Martha Stewart. You should have tried playing Monopoly with the G-Men.
On October 28 2005, the office of the Special Prosecutor released a press statement which stated in part:
"A major focus of the grand jury investigation was to determine which government officials had disclosed to the media prior to July 14, 2003, information concerning Valerie Wilson's CIA affiliation, and the nature, timing, extent, and purpose of such disclosures, as well as whether any official made such a disclosure knowing that Valerie Wilson's employment by the CIA was classified information."
Somebody needs to inform Fitzgerald that "we got em." Kind of like Bush in Poland when he announced finding two trailers in Iraq and said that they had found the WMDs that Colin Powell had referred to in his speech at the UN.
Hey Mr Fitzgerald, as for those government officials you've been looking for, we found em. Surprise, surprise, its Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.
When reading the criminal indictment against Libby, its clear that Karl Rove and Libby each told reporters about Valerie Plame's status as a CIA agent before Novak's column was published, albeit Libby did it first on June 23, 2003, when he told Judy Miller from the New York Times.
That is, first as far as we know anyways, because after close to a 3-year tax dollar funded investigation, it has since been revealed that Bob Woodward, of the Washington Post, was told of Valerie's CIA status reportedly before Libby and Rove made the revelations to Miller, Cooper or Novak.
But as the law applies to Libby and Rove, it doesn't matter who leaked first, because they still violated the "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," Form SF-312, that they signed as a condition of employment which prohibits even confirming or repeating classified information already leaked. The briefing book that comes with the form states in relevant part:
Before confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not, confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.
By now, a lot of people are wondering why it is that Libby is arrested and Rove is not. It's probably due to a variety of reasons.
On August 13, 2005, journalist, Murray Waas, reported that back in 2003, officials from the Justice Department and the FBI recommended the appointment of a special prosecutor because they felt that Rove had not been truthful about his conversation with Cooper, nor in claiming that he had first heard of Valerie's identity from a reporter whose name he could not remember.
At the time, Rove maintained that he had only spoken about Valerie to reporters after her identity had already become public. But we now know that Rove and Libby were the sources for Cooper's article in Time Magazine, published 3 days after Novak's column which cited unnamed government officials, when describing Valerie as a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
So again why is Libby the only one arrested? His only variation from the agreed upon talking points was when he added the name Tim Russert to "the reporter-told-me" story, while Rove stuck to the line that he could not remember the reporter’s name.
For one thing, when the investigation began, I suspect that it's highly unlikely that Libby had any of the top dogs at the Justice Department in his back pocket. Whereas Rove reportedly raked in over $750,000 in consulting fees for working on prior campaigns for John Ashcroft, the reigning Attorney General at the time, and with a political hatchet man like Rove involved, who knows how many skeletons could be buried along those campaign trails.
Ashcroft is said to have been briefed on at least one of Rove's interviews with the FBI. That briefing probably led to the first get-out-of-jail-free card for Rove.
But even with the FBI breathing down his neck, in February 2004, Rove twice went before the grand jury and lied through his teeth. He refused to admit that he had spoken to Novak about Valerie before she was outed, and he denied talking with Cooper period.
However, on December 2, 2005, the New York Times, reported that a conversation between Rove's lawyer and "a journalist for Time magazine led Mr. Rove to change his testimony last year to the grand jury in the C.I.A. leak case."
Which means Rove received another get-out-of-jail-free card in this instance.
According to Time Magazine journalist, Viveca Novak's article titled, "What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald," on December 10, 2003, her visits and conversations Attorney Robert Luskin began innocently enough.
"In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on," she wrote. "I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation," Viveca said.
"Well," Luskin reportedly told her, "you're sitting next to Karl Rove's lawyer."
"I began spending a little more time than usual with Luskin as I tried to keep track of the investigation," Viveca explained.
Sometime during the week of October 18, 2005, which Viveca refers to as "indictment week," she says, Luskin "phoned me and said he had disclosed to Fitzgerald the content of a conversation he and I had had at Cafe Deluxe more than a year earlier and that Fitzgerald might want to talk to me."
According to Viveca, she did meet with Fitzgerald on November 10, 2005, for about two hours after her attorney advised Fitzgerald that she would discuss only her interactions with Luskin that were relevant to the conversation in question, with no "fishing expeditions, no questions about my other reporting or sources in the case," she wrote.
Fitzgerald agreed to the conditions, she said, and advised her lawyer that he wanted to "remove the chicken bone without disturbing the body."
During the meeting, Fitzgerald asked if Luskin had ever talked to Viveca about whether Rove was Cooper's source on the topic of Wilson's wife.
"That was the "chicken bone" Fitzgerald had referred to," Viveca wrote.
Here is what happened according to her first-person account of her visits with Luskin as to what was discussed about Rove and Cooper:
"Toward the end of one of our meetings," she said, "I remember Luskin looking at me and saying something to the effect of "Karl doesn't have a Cooper problem. He was not a source for Matt."
"I responded instinctively," Viveca wrote, "thinking he was trying to spin me, and said something like, "Are you sure about that? That's not what I hear around TIME."
"He looked surprised and very serious," she said. "There's nothing in the phone logs," Luskin told Viveca.
"In the course of the investigation, the logs of all Rove's calls around the July 2003 time period," Viveca wrote, "had been combed, and Luskin was telling me there were no references to Matt."
Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, its apparent that Rove realized the importance of covering his tracks while he was leaking to reporters in the summer of 2003. Here lies the missing link to this puzzle.
In a November 28, 2005, article in Raw Story, Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna, who have doggedly investigated this matter, reported that Rove’s former personal assistant, Susan Ralston, whose job it was to screen Rove’s phone calls at the White House, had previously testified that Cooper’s call to Rove was not logged in because Cooper had called through the White House switchboard and was transferred to Rove’s office, as opposed to calling Rove’s office directly.
But citing “those close to the probe,” the Raw Story article noted, “that Fitzgerald obtained documentary evidence showing that other unrelated calls transferred to Rove’s office by the switchboard were logged.”
In addition, in a July 25, 2005, Time Magazine article titled, "What I Told The Grand Jury," Cooper recounts his recollection of what happened when he called the White House.
"I recall calling Rove from my office at TIME magazine," Cooper wrote, "through the White House switchboard and being transferred to his office."
"I believe a woman answered the phone and said words to the effect that Rove wasn't there or was busy before going on vacation," he said.
"But then, I recall," Cooper said, "she said something like, "Hang on," and I was transferred to him."
"I recall," Cooper wrote, "saying something like, "I'm writing about Wilson," before he interjected, "Don't get too far out on Wilson."
No doubt in light of these discoveries, Fitzgerald invited Ms Ralston for a return engagement with the grand jury.
According to Raw Story, while testifying the second time, Ralston said that Rove instructed her not to log in the call from Cooper and she also provided information about other calls between Rove and reporters, including Robert Novak.
It should be noted here that Ms Ralston was hired by Rove after she came highly recommended from his good friend: Jack Abramoff, for whom Ms Ralston performed similar duties "-- that is until Abramoff realized she'd be far more useful embedded in the West Wing," according to Rolling Stone Magazine.
After his chat with Viveca, Attorney Luskin reportedly orchestrated a search for any record of a conversation between Rove and Cooper and low and behold, an e-mail from Rove to senior White House official, Stephen Hadley surfaced, that provided detail of a conversation between Rove and Cooper that took place before Valerie was outed by Robert Novak.
There has been much speculation about when the Rove-Hadley email was found and when it was turned over to Fitzgerald. In her December 19, article, Viveca claims that she did not find out until the fall of 2005, that her remark to Luskin had led to a search for evidence that Rove and Cooper had talked.
"According to Luskin," Viveca wrote in the article, "he turned the e-mail over to Fitzgerald when he found it, leading Rove to acknowledge before the grand jury in October 2004 that he had indeed spoken with Cooper."
The fact that Rove was not charged on the spot for this slick trick, shows that he got another get-out-of-jail-free card because he had been ordered to turn over all emails to the special prosecutor just like everyone else in the White House.
"On October 3, 2003," according to a memo authored by Andy Card, then White House Chief of Staff, "every employee in the Executive Office of the President received instructions from Counsel's office about obligations to search for and provide documents that may be related to the Justice Department's investigation."
In addition, the subpoenas issued by Fitzgerald to the White House called for, among other things:
1) All documents from February 1, 2002 through 2003 related to Plame, Wilson's trip to Niger, or to contacts with journalists.
2) All documents from July 6 to July 21, 2003 from the White House Iraq Group (of which Libby, Hadley, and Rove were members).
3) All documents relating to conversations with Matt Cooper of Time Magazine.
According to reporter, Jason Leopold, neither Hadley nor Rove disclosed the communication about Valerie when they were questioned by the FBI, or testified to the grand jury.
Rove said that he found out about Valerie from reporters, and, "Hadley testified that he recalled learning about Plame Wilson when her name was published in a newspaper column," Leopold said.
As it turns out, the email to Hadley was sent within minutes after Rove spoke to Cooper on July 11, 2003, and included the comments: “Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he’s got a welfare reform story coming. When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn’t this damaging? Hasn’t the president been hurt? I didn’t take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn’t get Time far out in front on this.”
In February 2006, Fitzgerald informed Libby's attorneys that the White House had turned over about 250 pages of previously undisclosed e-mails from the Cheney's office, which have no doubt provided hours of interesting reading for the prosecutor's team.
With his feet to the fire, on October 15, 2004, Rove marched back into the grand jury to change his story and say that he must have discussed Valerie with Cooper after all, because the e-mail established that he had in fact had a conversation with Cooper.
That day, Viveca Novak wrote a web exclusive for Time and quoted her drinking buddy, Luskin as saying: "My client appeared voluntarily before the grand jury and has cooperated with the investigation since it began."
In the article, Viveca mentions a question to which she knows the answer but doesn't share it with her readers. "Fitzgerald is trying to find out who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative married to former ambassador Joe Wilson, to several journalists in July 2003," she wrote.
In December 2005, Luskin testified that his meeting with Viveca where he learned about the Rove-Cooper connection, took place in late January or early February 2004, the same month in which Rove had reportedly testified twice and Fitzgerald had sought the authority to prosecute officials if they were found to have obstructed his investigation.
However the problem is that Viveca, says she thinks the conversation took place in either March or May 2004.
But a more pressing dilemma for Viveca personally, has turned out to be that she continued to write articles on the leak case without informing her boss at Time Magazine about her insider knowledge of the facts.
According to the April 27, 2006, New York Times, Viveca no longer works for Time. "She left the magazine after a dispute over her role in the case," the NYT's said, "taking a buyout package last month."
So it looks like another journalist bites the dust in the wake of the illegal conduct by the White House. After a 20-some year tenure, Judy Miller got the boot from the New York Times for not revealing her involvement with the Libby to her boss. Bob Novak got hot under the collar when asked a question about his part in the case and walked of a live broadcast on CNN and got canned, and even Bob Woodward is said to have fallen off his pedestal at the Washington Post.
Yet as the body-count rises, Karl Rove is always seen smiling like a cat that just ate a canary and knows he got away with it.
Why Rove waited some five or six months to correct his testimony with the grand jury is said to be a mystery but it may simply be that when Luskin gave him the news that he was busted, Cooper was still refusing to identify Rove as his source and so he decided to run out the clock and bet the farm.
What could he lose? The odds were good. The Supreme Court had certainly demonstrated its allegiance to the Bush team in the past.
When the lower court ordered Cooper to testify, just as expected, Time appealed the decision all the way to the High Court but was unsuccessful.
But in this case, Rove had the most to lose.
On July 13, 2005, Cooper appeared before the grand jury and informed the panel that Rove was the official who told him that Valerie was employed at the CIA, and the panel already knew that Libby was the other source.
According to Cooper, his conversation with Rove was the first time he had heard anything about Wilson’s wife. In addition, Rove had told Cooper that more information that would discredit Wilson and his findings in Niger would soon be declassified.
In a July 25, 2005, article discussing his testimony, in Time Magazine, Cooper wrote: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes."
"Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes," he said.
"When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know," Cooper wrote.
Cooper also told the grand jury that he had a distinct memory of Rove ending the phone call by saying, “I’ve already said too much.”
Over this time period, Rove got dealt a whole deck of get-out-of-jail-free cards.
After it became known that Rove was indeed Cooper's secret source, on July 15, 2005, ninety-one Democrats in Congress signed a letter to Bush calling for Rove to explain his role in the leak, or to resign and 13 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee called for hearings on the matter.
When the Libby indictment was issued, and it became known that Rove had definitely participated in blowing Valerie's cover, 16 former CIA and military intelligence officials petitioned Bush to suspend Rove's security clearance and Bush refused to grant their request.
Karl Rove still has security clearance to this very day.
The granting of this free pass becomes all the more obvious when compared to what happened to former Clinton advisor, Sandy Berger, in 2003, when he took classified documents from the National Archives, to prepare to testify before the 9/11 Commission. In order to settle the case, Berger had to plead guilty to mishandling of documents in violation of the Espionage Act, and his security clearance was suspended for 3 years.
In the grand jury sessions, press aides were reportedly confronted with internal White House documents, mainly e-mails and telephone logs, between White House aides and reporters and were questioned about conversations with reporters.
According to the New York Times, the set of documents that prosecutors repeatedly referred to in their meetings with White House aides are extensive notes compiled by none other than Scooter Libby.
The logs indicate that several White House officials talked to Novak shortly before the appearance of his July 14 column, the Washington Post reported.
That said, it should be interesting to see how many more get-out-of-jail-free cards Fitzgerald has up his sleeve and how they get distributed.
Rove Gets Off - I Want My Money Back
Evelyn Pringle June 14, 2006
The American people were told three years ago that an investigation was being set up to do one thing, find out the names of the 2 Bush administration officials who were the sources for a newspaper article by Bob Novak that revealed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative.
We now know that Rove was one of the sources - end of story. He should have been charged.
Does the Bush administration really think that the public will not remember what they were told when this investigation was set up?
How Rove got Fitzgerald to fold and let him off is anybody's guess. Maybe Rove used his usual dirty tricks and dug deep enough to find some intimidating tale in the special prosecutor's lily-white past.
Few among us are without any skeletons and what better thug to find them than Karl Rove. That's his well-documented specialty.
I heard some talking head on TV say Democrats should apologize to Rove. For what? He was the guy we knew did it when the investigation began and he was the guy fingered in the investigation as a Novak source.
Bush should be apologizing to the CIA, to Ms Plame, and to the American taxpayers.
John Dean said this White House is worse than Nixon and Watergate and he is right. This White House is worse than Nixon not only because they play dirtier than Nixon, but because no matter what it does no one will hold it accountable. This administration makes Nixon look like a saint.
As a taxpayer, I want my money back. Not only for this charade of an investigation but also I want my share of the money spent on supporting Valerie Plame's cover for 18 years in the CIA that was flushed down the toilet by top administration officials including the 2 worst thugs at the top.
The special prosecutor has not named the second source for Novak's column. I predict that in the end, we will find out that it was Bush or Cheney.
Since Bush took office, just because he has never had to balance a check book in his life, he throws around our tax dollars like a drunken sailor, without drawing a peep about his spending habits from the mainstream press.
Bush knew it was Rove all the long while he allowed this costly cat and mouse game to continue. Bush knew he and Cheney were involved from the get-go.
To think that tens of millions of dollars have gone up in smoke is not acceptable and the media needs to start reporting on how the hard earned money of working Americans is being wasted.
The Karl Rove case is just the latest example of six years of investigations that do nothing more than prove what we knew to begin with, while the crooks walk away unscathed in plain sight.
How much money has been wasted investigating Halliburton since the war began, only to find that the company got the contracts illegally through Cheney, ripped us off left right and center in Iraq, and was guilty as charged every single time and then let off the hook?
How much money was spent investigating the lies by Bush administration officials to Congress about the cost of the prescription drug bill only to determine the parties were guilty as sin, at a cost to tax payers of $130 billion more than expected, and then let off the hook because the lead crook had already went out the revolving door of the White House to work for the drug companies?
How much money have we spent to verify that the Bush administration used over a billion tax dollars to illegally advertise its policies, with phony ads to boot, to buffalo the public only to see nothing done about it?
How much money has been wasted investigating the WMD lies that got us into the disaster in Iraq only to verify that we were lied to, and the war was totally unnecessary, while half of liars are back in the private sector making big bucks off war profiteering schemes set up at the same time the lies were being told?
How much money was spent chasing after those WMDs that never existed due to those lies?
I could go on and on and on but I don’t have all day. This is my money and I want to know who is going put a stop to the on-going robbery by this administration.
The Rove spectacle is merely the icing on the cake and another kick in the teeth to American tax payers.
The American people were told three years ago that an investigation was being set up to do one thing, find out the names of the 2 Bush administration officials who were the sources for a newspaper article by Bob Novak that revealed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative.
We now know that Rove was one of the sources - end of story. He should have been charged.
Does the Bush administration really think that the public will not remember what they were told when this investigation was set up?
How Rove got Fitzgerald to fold and let him off is anybody's guess. Maybe Rove used his usual dirty tricks and dug deep enough to find some intimidating tale in the special prosecutor's lily-white past.
Few among us are without any skeletons and what better thug to find them than Karl Rove. That's his well-documented specialty.
I heard some talking head on TV say Democrats should apologize to Rove. For what? He was the guy we knew did it when the investigation began and he was the guy fingered in the investigation as a Novak source.
Bush should be apologizing to the CIA, to Ms Plame, and to the American taxpayers.
John Dean said this White House is worse than Nixon and Watergate and he is right. This White House is worse than Nixon not only because they play dirtier than Nixon, but because no matter what it does no one will hold it accountable. This administration makes Nixon look like a saint.
As a taxpayer, I want my money back. Not only for this charade of an investigation but also I want my share of the money spent on supporting Valerie Plame's cover for 18 years in the CIA that was flushed down the toilet by top administration officials including the 2 worst thugs at the top.
The special prosecutor has not named the second source for Novak's column. I predict that in the end, we will find out that it was Bush or Cheney.
Since Bush took office, just because he has never had to balance a check book in his life, he throws around our tax dollars like a drunken sailor, without drawing a peep about his spending habits from the mainstream press.
Bush knew it was Rove all the long while he allowed this costly cat and mouse game to continue. Bush knew he and Cheney were involved from the get-go.
To think that tens of millions of dollars have gone up in smoke is not acceptable and the media needs to start reporting on how the hard earned money of working Americans is being wasted.
The Karl Rove case is just the latest example of six years of investigations that do nothing more than prove what we knew to begin with, while the crooks walk away unscathed in plain sight.
How much money has been wasted investigating Halliburton since the war began, only to find that the company got the contracts illegally through Cheney, ripped us off left right and center in Iraq, and was guilty as charged every single time and then let off the hook?
How much money was spent investigating the lies by Bush administration officials to Congress about the cost of the prescription drug bill only to determine the parties were guilty as sin, at a cost to tax payers of $130 billion more than expected, and then let off the hook because the lead crook had already went out the revolving door of the White House to work for the drug companies?
How much money have we spent to verify that the Bush administration used over a billion tax dollars to illegally advertise its policies, with phony ads to boot, to buffalo the public only to see nothing done about it?
How much money has been wasted investigating the WMD lies that got us into the disaster in Iraq only to verify that we were lied to, and the war was totally unnecessary, while half of liars are back in the private sector making big bucks off war profiteering schemes set up at the same time the lies were being told?
How much money was spent chasing after those WMDs that never existed due to those lies?
I could go on and on and on but I don’t have all day. This is my money and I want to know who is going put a stop to the on-going robbery by this administration.
The Rove spectacle is merely the icing on the cake and another kick in the teeth to American tax payers.
Rove and Bush - Most Insidious Traitors
Evelyn Pringle June 15, 2006
Shortly after Valerie Plame was outed, Joe Wilson received a long handwritten letter from the first President Bush expressing his "outrage at what had happened and his understanding of the seriousness of it," according to Wilson.
The elder Bush, a former CIA Director himself, is known to have said in 1999, that “those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources" are "the most insidious of traitors.”
How must the father feel now that he knows his son is the leader of a gang of the “most insidious of traitors?”
The American taxpayers who paid for the investigation to determine the identities of the insidious traitors deserve to know what happened to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald between October 28, 2005 and June 13, 2006. Back when he announced the Scooter Libby indictment, he said Valerie Plame's CIA status was classified and not common knowledge. At his October press conference, Fitzgerald specifically told reporters:
Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but also it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security. Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.
In an August 27, 2005 affidavit, filed in the Libby case, Fitzgerald described Valerie Plame as “a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years.”
Fitzgerald has identified Karl Rove as one of Novak's sources. In fact, according to court filings, Rove was the person who told Scooter Libby that Novak was planning to write a story about Wilson before it was published. And as it turns out, Rove was Time Magazine's Matt Cooper's source as well.
So what happened to the special prosecutor since October 28, 2005?
One thing is clear. The "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," Forms SF-312, signed by members of the Bush administration are not worth the paper they are written on. Rove signed that form as a condition of employment and it prohibits even confirming or repeating classified information already leaked. The briefing book that comes with the form states in relevant part:
Before confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not, confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.
Since day one, when Plame’s identity showed up in the press, there have been lies, upon lies, upon more lies from members of the Bush administration
On September 29, 2003, during a public press conference, press secretary, Scott McClellan told the world in regard to any White House involvement in the leak:
"There's been nothing, absolutely nothing, brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement, and that includes the vice president's office, as well."
McClellan assured Americans that "if anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."
In regard to Rove being involved, McClellan said the "President knows" it is not true and then told world:
"And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove ... He [President Bush]'s aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it."
On June 24, 2004, Fitzgerald and his assistants interviewed Bush himself in the Oval Office. At a press conference that day, McClellan told Americans that Bush was "pleased to do his part" and stated:
"No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States, and he has said on more than one occasion that if anyone -- inside or outside the government has information that can help the investigators get to the bottom of this, they should provide that information to the officials in charge."
A month or so later, Karl Rove said, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name," to a CNN reporter at the Republican convention in July 2004.
"This is at the Justice Department," Rove said, "I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation."
On July 2, 2005, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA."
The thorough investigation Rove referred to is done and it revealed what many of us knew when it began. Rove was the source of the leak of Valerie's identity, and not to only one reporter but to two.
On July 13, 2005, Matt Cooper testified before the grand jury and informed the panel that Rove was the first source that told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
In an article discussing his testimony, in the July 17, 2005 Time Magazine, Cooper wrote: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes."
"Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes," Cooper asked and answered in the article.
"When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know," Cooper wrote.
On April 6, 2006, it was widely reported that Libby told the grand jury that Bush and Cheney authorized the disclosure of classified information on Iraq's weapons program to debunk Wilson's claims, according to documents filed in the Libby case.
Libby testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller, getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval were unique in his recollection, according to Fitzgerald‘s filings in the case.
He further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by Cheney to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin, the communications person for Cheney at the time.
Press secretary McClellan confirmed that Bush authorized the leak, but refused to answer questions about why Bush would bother appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the Plame matter if he knew from the beginning who disclosed the information.
After being made a fool of in front of his fellow reporters, poor old Scott McClellan bit the dust apparently because he did not possess the ability to lie at the drop of a hat without looking guilty, THE top requirement for anyone who hopes to hold onto a job in the Bush White House.
On October 7, 2003, three months after Plame’s identity was leaked, Bush said in a press conference that it was unlikely that the person who leaked the name would be found.
"I mean this is a town full of people who like to leak information," he said. "And I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official.”
“Now,” he rambled on, “this is a large administration, and there's lots of senior officials. I don't have any idea."
For 3 long years, Bush engaged in this type of a cat-and-mouse game at the expense of the American taxpayers, and most taxpayers emphatically say they are not amused.
John Dean, former White House counsel to President Nixon during Watergate, wrote an open letter to Fitzgerald and warned that the Bush gang was using the same tactics the Nixon team used during Watergate and said in part:
Indeed, this is exactly the plan that was employed during Watergate by those who sought to conceal the Nixon Administration's crimes, and keep criminals in office.
The plan was to keep the investigation focused on the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters - and away from the atmosphere in which such an action was undertaken.
Toward this end, I was directed by superiors to get the Department of Justice to keep its focus on the break-in, and nothing else.
That was done. And had Congress not undertaken its own investigation (since it was a Democratically-controlled Congress with a Republican President) it is very likely that Watergate would have ended with the conviction of those caught in the bungled burglary and wiretapping attempt at the Democratic headquarters.
We will no doubt have a Democratically controlled Congress in about 8 months and they had better do their job in exposing this corrupt regime because this gang of thugs is ten times worse than the Nixon administration.
The damning truth is that the US government exposed the identity of an undercover office and the fact that this unprecedented act will go unpunished will have far reaching consequences on covert operations all over the world.
If a CIA officer is exposed, his or her informants are exposed. In all cases, the cover of an officer ensures not only his or her own safety but that of the agent’s assets as well. A CIA agent in some foreign country will lose an opportunity to recruit an asset that may be invaluable because promises of protection will no longer carry the trust they once did.
When the outing occurred, critics say, Bush should have demanded the resignation of all persons involved. At a bare minimum, he should have suspended their security clearances and placed them on administrative leave. But then how could he do that when him and Cheney were directing the plot.
Instead, even knowing what they knew, the Bush gang flooded the airwaves with political rhetoric demeaning Plame‘s importance at the CIA. Each time the talking heads displayed their ignorance by portraying Plame as a mere paper-pusher, or belittled the degree of cover used to protect CIA operatives, they did a disservice to all intelligence agents.
On July 22, 2005, former CIA agent, Larry Johnson testified at a Senate hearing and said the matter was not just about Plame. "We're talking about an intelligence resource, a United States national security resource that was destroyed by these White House officials," Johnson said, "that went out and started talking to the press about this."
"And they have," he testified, "harmed the security of this country."
On October 30, 2005, former CIA agent Jim Marcinkowski told 60 Minutes that one of the worst things about the leak is that it gives America’s enemies clues about how the CIA operates. “She is the wife of an ambassador," he explained, "now, since this happened, every wife of an ambassador is going to be suspected."
"Or they'll know there's a possibility," he said, "that the wife of a U.S. ambassador is a CIA agent.”
"This was done to silence others," according to Joe Wilson. "The message was if you do to us what Wilson did to us, we'll do to you what we just did to Wilson's family,” he said.
Well then mission accomplished. After watching this dog and pony show for 3 years, who among us is going to expose the truth when we know this gang of thugs has done something detrimental to the country when it means our entire family is fair game for destruction and there is nothing we can do about it.
Shortly after Valerie Plame was outed, Joe Wilson received a long handwritten letter from the first President Bush expressing his "outrage at what had happened and his understanding of the seriousness of it," according to Wilson.
The elder Bush, a former CIA Director himself, is known to have said in 1999, that “those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources" are "the most insidious of traitors.”
How must the father feel now that he knows his son is the leader of a gang of the “most insidious of traitors?”
The American taxpayers who paid for the investigation to determine the identities of the insidious traitors deserve to know what happened to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald between October 28, 2005 and June 13, 2006. Back when he announced the Scooter Libby indictment, he said Valerie Plame's CIA status was classified and not common knowledge. At his October press conference, Fitzgerald specifically told reporters:
Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but also it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security. Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.
In an August 27, 2005 affidavit, filed in the Libby case, Fitzgerald described Valerie Plame as “a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years.”
Fitzgerald has identified Karl Rove as one of Novak's sources. In fact, according to court filings, Rove was the person who told Scooter Libby that Novak was planning to write a story about Wilson before it was published. And as it turns out, Rove was Time Magazine's Matt Cooper's source as well.
So what happened to the special prosecutor since October 28, 2005?
One thing is clear. The "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," Forms SF-312, signed by members of the Bush administration are not worth the paper they are written on. Rove signed that form as a condition of employment and it prohibits even confirming or repeating classified information already leaked. The briefing book that comes with the form states in relevant part:
Before confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of the SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not, confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure.
Since day one, when Plame’s identity showed up in the press, there have been lies, upon lies, upon more lies from members of the Bush administration
On September 29, 2003, during a public press conference, press secretary, Scott McClellan told the world in regard to any White House involvement in the leak:
"There's been nothing, absolutely nothing, brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement, and that includes the vice president's office, as well."
McClellan assured Americans that "if anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."
In regard to Rove being involved, McClellan said the "President knows" it is not true and then told world:
"And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove ... He [President Bush]'s aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it."
On June 24, 2004, Fitzgerald and his assistants interviewed Bush himself in the Oval Office. At a press conference that day, McClellan told Americans that Bush was "pleased to do his part" and stated:
"No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States, and he has said on more than one occasion that if anyone -- inside or outside the government has information that can help the investigators get to the bottom of this, they should provide that information to the officials in charge."
A month or so later, Karl Rove said, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name," to a CNN reporter at the Republican convention in July 2004.
"This is at the Justice Department," Rove said, "I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation."
On July 2, 2005, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA."
The thorough investigation Rove referred to is done and it revealed what many of us knew when it began. Rove was the source of the leak of Valerie's identity, and not to only one reporter but to two.
On July 13, 2005, Matt Cooper testified before the grand jury and informed the panel that Rove was the first source that told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.
In an article discussing his testimony, in the July 17, 2005 Time Magazine, Cooper wrote: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes."
"Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes," Cooper asked and answered in the article.
"When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know," Cooper wrote.
On April 6, 2006, it was widely reported that Libby told the grand jury that Bush and Cheney authorized the disclosure of classified information on Iraq's weapons program to debunk Wilson's claims, according to documents filed in the Libby case.
Libby testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller, getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval were unique in his recollection, according to Fitzgerald‘s filings in the case.
He further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by Cheney to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin, the communications person for Cheney at the time.
Press secretary McClellan confirmed that Bush authorized the leak, but refused to answer questions about why Bush would bother appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the Plame matter if he knew from the beginning who disclosed the information.
After being made a fool of in front of his fellow reporters, poor old Scott McClellan bit the dust apparently because he did not possess the ability to lie at the drop of a hat without looking guilty, THE top requirement for anyone who hopes to hold onto a job in the Bush White House.
On October 7, 2003, three months after Plame’s identity was leaked, Bush said in a press conference that it was unlikely that the person who leaked the name would be found.
"I mean this is a town full of people who like to leak information," he said. "And I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official.”
“Now,” he rambled on, “this is a large administration, and there's lots of senior officials. I don't have any idea."
For 3 long years, Bush engaged in this type of a cat-and-mouse game at the expense of the American taxpayers, and most taxpayers emphatically say they are not amused.
John Dean, former White House counsel to President Nixon during Watergate, wrote an open letter to Fitzgerald and warned that the Bush gang was using the same tactics the Nixon team used during Watergate and said in part:
Indeed, this is exactly the plan that was employed during Watergate by those who sought to conceal the Nixon Administration's crimes, and keep criminals in office.
The plan was to keep the investigation focused on the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters - and away from the atmosphere in which such an action was undertaken.
Toward this end, I was directed by superiors to get the Department of Justice to keep its focus on the break-in, and nothing else.
That was done. And had Congress not undertaken its own investigation (since it was a Democratically-controlled Congress with a Republican President) it is very likely that Watergate would have ended with the conviction of those caught in the bungled burglary and wiretapping attempt at the Democratic headquarters.
We will no doubt have a Democratically controlled Congress in about 8 months and they had better do their job in exposing this corrupt regime because this gang of thugs is ten times worse than the Nixon administration.
The damning truth is that the US government exposed the identity of an undercover office and the fact that this unprecedented act will go unpunished will have far reaching consequences on covert operations all over the world.
If a CIA officer is exposed, his or her informants are exposed. In all cases, the cover of an officer ensures not only his or her own safety but that of the agent’s assets as well. A CIA agent in some foreign country will lose an opportunity to recruit an asset that may be invaluable because promises of protection will no longer carry the trust they once did.
When the outing occurred, critics say, Bush should have demanded the resignation of all persons involved. At a bare minimum, he should have suspended their security clearances and placed them on administrative leave. But then how could he do that when him and Cheney were directing the plot.
Instead, even knowing what they knew, the Bush gang flooded the airwaves with political rhetoric demeaning Plame‘s importance at the CIA. Each time the talking heads displayed their ignorance by portraying Plame as a mere paper-pusher, or belittled the degree of cover used to protect CIA operatives, they did a disservice to all intelligence agents.
On July 22, 2005, former CIA agent, Larry Johnson testified at a Senate hearing and said the matter was not just about Plame. "We're talking about an intelligence resource, a United States national security resource that was destroyed by these White House officials," Johnson said, "that went out and started talking to the press about this."
"And they have," he testified, "harmed the security of this country."
On October 30, 2005, former CIA agent Jim Marcinkowski told 60 Minutes that one of the worst things about the leak is that it gives America’s enemies clues about how the CIA operates. “She is the wife of an ambassador," he explained, "now, since this happened, every wife of an ambassador is going to be suspected."
"Or they'll know there's a possibility," he said, "that the wife of a U.S. ambassador is a CIA agent.”
"This was done to silence others," according to Joe Wilson. "The message was if you do to us what Wilson did to us, we'll do to you what we just did to Wilson's family,” he said.
Well then mission accomplished. After watching this dog and pony show for 3 years, who among us is going to expose the truth when we know this gang of thugs has done something detrimental to the country when it means our entire family is fair game for destruction and there is nothing we can do about it.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Barack Obama - The Wizard of Oz
March 29, 2008 Evelyn Pringle
The most trusted leaders of the Democratic party, such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, ought to be ashamed of themselves for supporting Barack Obama. With use of the internet, a fifth grader could connect the dots to show a picture of a guy who was picked up in college and carried up the political ladder by a corrupt gang of influence peddlers.
John McCain is just drooling waiting for Obama to become the nominee so that he can come out with the trail of dirt that the Democratic party is too afraid to reveal this late in the in the game. If nominated, Obama will not survive a month when faced with the Republican attack machine.
If he becomes the nominee, the web of corruption leading to Obama's rise to power that this investigative journalist was able to untangle in less than three weeks, will be front page news right up until election day, handing the Republicans their only chance in hell of winning the White House.
Instead of the leaders of the Democratic party doing their homework, a small group of investigative reporters in Chicago will be credited with exposing the corrupt backbone of Obama political career and the mainstream media need only follow their lead if the Democrats hold him out to be a viable candidate.
The list of reporters deserving of credit for doing the investigative work that should have been done by the leaders of the Democratic party before they got behind Obama, includes, but is not limited to, Chicago Sun-Times reporters, Tim Novak, Dave McKinney, Fran Spielman, Chris Fusco, Natasha Korecki, Steve Warmbir and Lynn Sweet. Chicago Tribune reporters especially deserving of credit include Jeff Coen, Bob Secter, John Chase, Virginia Groark, Rick Pearson, David Jackson, John McCormick, Mickey Ciokajlo, Rudolph Bush and Dan Mihalopoulos.
This article is the first in a series that will give the details of Obama's rise to fame.
As for the most recognized allegation against Obama, that helped slumlords operate in Chicago, while accepting their campaign contributions, its true. Obama was a member of the political machine that helped a whole gang of slumlords funnel local, state and federal tax dollars, over the backs of poor people in need of affordable housing, to line their own pockets and fund the campaigns of politicians in positions to recommend and award contracts.
The Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland law firm, where Obama worked for nearly a decade, served as a hub for a slew of slumlord deals, many that benefited the firm's founder, Allison Davis, and Obama's claims that he knew nothing about the inner workings of this small firm, represent an insult to the intelligence of the American public.
Tony Rezko was Obama political Godfather. Obama received his first contributions of $2,000, to launch his political career as a state senator on July 31, 1995, from Rezko. Obama started out saying that Rezko only raised $50,000 or $60,000 for his political career but after a year of lying his way through the primaries, the latest total he gave to the Sun-Times and Tribune during interviews on March 14, 2008, adds up to $250,000.
For a year, he also minimized his relationship with Rezko by telling the media that he only had dinner or lunch with Rezko one or twice a year. But when confronted by Sun-Times reporters during the March 14 interview, with the allegation that an FBI mole saw him coming and going to Rezko’s office often and that three sources said he talked to Rezko on the phone daily, Obama changed his tune.
Now the story is that he may have talked to Rezko daily at times during campaigns but sometimes he went for a whole month without talking to him. “I have to say we're talking over the course of 10 years,” Obama said, “there might have been spurts where I talked to him daily.”
But then he added: "There might have been stretches over a month where I wouldn't have talked to him at all."
This story is a far cry from the picture Obama gave to the public of him and Rezko meeting once or twice a year, and he never did respond to the allegation by the Times reporter that an FBI mole “saw you coming and going from Rezko’s office a lot.“
Without Rezko's fundraising, Obama would not have been elected to the Illinois senate, or the US Senate, and he would not have sold the books he wrote about himself because like the Wizard of Oz, Obama is nobody special.
Even with Rezko's massive fund raising, Obama could not beat former Black Panther, Bobby Rush, in his 2000 bid for a seat in Congress. And the only reason he won the US Senate race was because his viable opponents had to drop out due to the public airing of personal scandals. Beating Alan Keyes is hardly a victory to brag about.
The media needs to quit grouping all the Obama backers under the name Antoin "Tony" Resko because the list of contributors to his political campaigns includes the names of many individuals and entities with their own agendas.
The trail of corruption involving the people raising money for Obama's political career stretches from the city of Chicago to the Illinois tollway to the O'Hare airport all the way over to Iraq. And testimony in Rezko's corruption trial reveals that an equal number of Democrat and Republican crooks benefited from all the moneymaking schemes.
Rezko is not a Democrat; he's an equal opportunity profiteer. He supported President George Bush and attended a Christmas party at the White House in December 2003, at the same time that he was a top fundraiser for Obama's US Senate campaign.
Rezko co-hosted a $3.8 million Chicago fundraiser for Bush in 2003, and on December 9, 2003, he donated $4,000 to Bush, as a "self-employed businessman," and gave another $2,000 on December 19, 2003, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Prior to backing Rod Blagojevich for governor of Illinois, Rezko threw his money behind Republican candidates for governor, including George Ryan, who was convicted of doling out leases and contracts to cronies and sentenced to prison for more than 6 years.
Rezko then switched horses and chose Blagojevich in 2002 and Obama has supported Blagojevich, even when his administration was embroiled in corruption investigations.
Recent testimony in the Rezko trial by his co-conspirator, Chicago businessman, Stuart Levine, explained that Rezko had plans for Blagojevich to be Presidential, not Obama. However, anybody following the trial knows that Blagojevich is more likely to be headed to the "Big House" rather than occupying the White House.
Obama's entering into real estate deals with Rezko, while it was public knowledge that he was under investigation for funneling illegal contributions to Illinois politicians, was not a "boneheaded" move, it was motivated by pure greed. While knowing that he would get caught up in a major scandal, Obama went ahead with the deal because he and his wife wanted that mansion, with four fireplaces, six bathrooms, and a wine cellar, period.
On March 16, 2008, the Boston Globe added an interesting twist to the story when reporting that Donna Schwan, of MetroPro Realty, which listed the mansion and lot next door for the owners, "said it is her recollection that the Obamas may not have made the highest bid, and that other bidders may have matched Rezko's bid," but the willingness of both buyers to close in June 2005, "was decisive."
Which logically means had Rezko not been willing to buy the lot in June, the deal was off.
According to an article by Edward McClelland in the February 1, 2008 Salon Magazine, when asked who approached her about the house, Donna Schwan told Salon, "I honestly don't remember. Tony Rezko lived across the street, so he'd been interested in the lot."
Any claim that Obama was unaware of the investigations into the corrupt dealings of Rezko with Illinois politicians in June 2005 is ridiculous. On February 15, 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported:
"Gov. Rod Blagojevich long has vowed to purge the Illinois tollway of cronyism, yet two of his closest friends and political advisers have links to food vendors awarded lucrative contracts to operate inside the toll road's sleek new oases, government records show."
"The Subway sandwich shops and Panda Express Asian restaurants now being installed in the tollway's seven revamped rest stops are controlled by firms with strong ties to the food-service empire of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Blagojevich confidant who has seeded the governor's cabinet with former business underlings."
Christopher Kelly, Blagojevich's chief fundraiser, "who also recommended the tollway's executive director for his job, is an investor in at least one Rezko-controlled food firm," the Tribune wrote. On March 16, 2005, the Tribune reported that:
"City officials alleged Tuesday that a minority contractor at O'Hare International Airport acted as a front for a firm run by Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a top adviser and fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich....
"Rezko, a member of Blagojevich's kitchen cabinet of advisers, has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks following questions about his links to operators of new tollway oasis franchises. The revamp of the oases is a showcase project for the Blagojevich administration."
On May 15, 2005, the Sun-Times reported that the accusations by his father-in-law that Blagojevich doled out jobs for campaign contributions had "resulted in dozens of grand jury subpoenas being sent to the governor's office, his unpaid advisers, agency directors and his top fund-raisers".
Among those subpoenaed for documents, sources told the Times, were "Blagojevich's biggest money men, Christopher Kelly and Antoin "Tony" Rezko."
On May 20, 2005, less than a month before Obama bought the mansion, the Tribune reported that Resko, "has had a business relationship with First Lady Patti Blagojevich for eight years, the governor's office acknowledged Thursday."
Six month before Obama bought the strip of land from Rezko's "wife" to enlarge his yard, on August 28, 2005, Natasha Korecki reported in the Sun-Times that, "there's so much corruption to investigate in the Chicago area, the FBI is adding manpower."
Robert Grant, FBI Special Agent in Charge, told the Times that he had reorganized the bureau to add a third public corruption squad, giving Chicago the largest corruption unit in the country, even bigger than those in New York and Los Angeles.
"It is the second time in two years the FBI in Chicago has expanded its public corruption force," Korecki noted.
On November 6, 2006, the Times asked Obama why he did not reveal the land deal with Rezko before it was reported by the Tribune stating: "Why did you not publicly disclose the transaction after Rezko got indicted?"
"At the time, it didn't strike me as relevant," Obama answered. It seems like a lot of events were not relevant a couple months before he announced his candidacy for president.
In the November 2007, Chicago Magazine, James Merriner described a "fashion show" that took place in the first week in November 2006, to benefit St Jude Children's Research Hospital, which he said, "attracted little if any media coverage, which may have been exactly as its organizers and sponsors had hoped."
"The invitation to the affair," he wrote, "offered a veritable guidebook to political influence in Illinois, much of it centered on one St. Jude benefactor, Antoin "Tony" Rezko."
"Just three weeks earlier," Merriner pointed out, "Rezko had been indicted on charges of extorting kickbacks from businesses seeking contracts from the Blagojevich administration."
The "fashion show" was chaired by Rita Rezko, co-chaired by the Governor's wife, Patti Blagojevich, and Michelle Obama was a special guest that day, according to Merriner.
Two weeks after the "fashion show," on November 17, 2006, the Sun-Times reported that Blagojevich's wife Patti got nearly $50,000 from a real estate deal in late 2002 involving Rezko.
In terms of dollar amounts of campaign contributions directly from Rezko in Illinois, the top four earners were, the now deceased President of the Cook County Board, John Stroger, Blagojevich, Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley, and Obama - in that order.
Rezko was the head of Stroger's campaign finance committee at the same time that he served on Obama US Senate finance committee.
When it came time for Stroger's reelection campaign, in the midst of the erupting Rezko scandals in the media, on April 8, 2005, the Tribune reported that Stroger "has selected beleaguered businessman and political powerbroker Antoin "Tony" Rezko as one of the honorary chairs of his campaign fundraiser next month."
Stroger appointed Rezko's wife Rita to the Cook County Employee Appeals Board, which hears cases filed by fired or disciplined workers, at a part-time salary of $37,000 a year.
According to documents filed in the Rezko corruption case, this was Rita's sole income when she supposedly came up with a $125,000 down payment and secured a $500,000 mortgage to buy the $625,00 lot next to Obama. Less than a year after Obama bought his strip of land, Rita sold the rest of the lot to attorney Michael Sreenan, and made a profit of more than $50,000.
On February 27, 2007, the Sun-Times pointed out that Obama's "new neighbor, Michael Sreenan," had contributed $5,000 to Obama's campaigns. Less than a year after buying the lot, Sreenan put it up for sale for $1.5 million in October 2007.
Of course John Stroger will not be answering any questions about corruption, or any other matter, because he died on January 18, 2008. His former chief of staff and godson, Orlando Jones, will not be talking either because he was found dead of self-inflicted gun wounds in September 2007, "just as a corruption inquiry targeting him was heating up," according to a September 7, 2007 report by CBS News channel 2 Chicago.
"Jones left his position in county government to create a lobbying firm in association with Tony Rezko, who has been indicted on fraud charges," CBS reported.
Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica told CBS that Orlando Jones’ death raised many questions about the Cook County president’s office. “Some of these matters Jones was involved in that are currently being investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office are reaching to the highest level of county government,” Peraica said.
Obama endorsed John Stroger's son, Todd Stroger, in his bid for Cook County Board President after his father died. Todd was in the news as recently as March 24, 2008, when the Sun-Times published a front-page article reporting that his cousin Donna Dunnings, the county’s new chief financial officer, was receiving a 12% pay increase.
Dunnings’ salary will be the largest increase of any county employee, with the average increase being around 5%. She will make nearly $160,000 with the pay increase, or roughly $5,000 more than her predecessor made at the job, according to the Times.
Mayor Daley endorsed Obama immediately after he announced he was running for president and in return, Obama endorsed Daley's reelection for Mayor right smack in the middle of major federal investigations of corruption in the Daley Administration.
Obama's ties to the corrupt Daley machine began when he was dating his wife Michelle and she brought him into the fold. Valerie Jarrett, the deputy chief of staff to Mayor Daley, hired Michelle as her assistant in 1991. Daley made Jarrett the chairman of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development and Michelle worked as her assistant in that Department during 1992-93.
From there Michelle moved up the political tiers to the University of Chicago and ultimately got an overnight pay raise from about $121,000 to close to $317,000, after Obama became a US Senator, as a vice president at the University of Chicago.
Susan Sher, was corporation counsel in the Daley Administration when Michelle was hired back in the early 1990s, and Sher is now Michelle's boss at the University of Chicago, according to the April 22, 2007 Chicago Tribune.
Shortly after Obama entered the US Senate, Michelle was also handed a position on the board of TreeHouse Foods. Wal-Mart is the largest customer of TreeHouse Foods. Factoring in stock options and other payments, the value of her compensation package for serving on the board in 2006 was $101,083, according to the Tribune report.
On May 14, 2007, during a meeting with the AFL-CIO in New Jersey, Obama was asked about Wal-Mart and he said: "I won't shop there." Michelle resigned from the board of TreeHouse eight days after husband said he would not shop at Wal-Mart, CBS News reported on May 27, 2007.
When it came time for Obama's US Senate campaign, Valerie Jarrett became the campaign finance chairman and worked hand and hand with fellow finance committee members, Rita and Tony Rezko, and his former boss at the law firm, Allison Davis, in fundraising endeavors. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, Tim Novak reported in the Sun-Times on April 23, 2007.
Jarrett is now the CEO of Habitat Co, a real estate development and management firm which manages the housing program for the Chicago Housing Authority, the entity mandated to administer public housing, and she serves as an unpaid advisor to Obama's Presidential campaign.
Mayor Daley's brother Bill also became an Obama advisor. Mayor Daley's chief image defender, David Axelrod, is a top strategist for Obama's campaign and he was also the media consultant for Obama's US Senate campaign.
On April 1, 2007, Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who is now chairman of the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told Ben Wallace-Wells in the New York Times: “David Axelrod’s mostly been visible in Chicago in the last decade as Daley’s public relations strategist and the guy who goes on television to defend Daley from charges of corruption”.
The scandals involving the Daley administration have no beginning and no end. In January 2004, the Sun-Times published a three-part series exposing widespread corruption in the Hired Truck Program and revealed that some companies were being paid for doing little or no work and that some had mob connections or were tied to city employees.
On January 25, 2005, the Associated Press reported that trucking company manager, John Cannatello, the 16th person charged in the scandal, was charged with getting $6.6 million in city hauling work "by giving campaign contributions and cash to officials and falsely claiming his firm was eligible for jobs set aside for women-owned businesses."
According to the article, city officials said the Hired Truck program, "which at its height doled out $38 million worth of work in one year to contractors without bids, was designed to save taxpayers money by outsourcing hauling jobs that otherwise would require the city to buy trucks and insurance."
On June 6, 2006, the Sun-Times reported that the brother-in-law of Cook County Commissioner, John Daley, was sentenced to 18 months in prison "for taking about $5,400 in bribes to steer city business to a Hired Truck company."
Of course John Daley is another brother of Mayor Daley.
On January 6, 2006, the New York Times ran the headline, "Corruption Scandal Loosening Mayor Daley's Grip on Chicago," and reported that a "wide-ranging federal investigation into what prosecutors describe as "pervasive fraud" in hiring and contracts at City Hall has led to 30 indictments, including two senior administrators close to the mayor, and a dozen cabinet-level resignations. "
The Tribune broke the hiring scandal on April 29, 2005, after federal agents carried out an all-night raid of Daley's patronage office at City Hall and less than three months later, Robert Sorich, the patronage chief in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and three former city officials, were arrested and charged with fraud to rig city hiring for 12 years.
During the criminal trial, prosecutors produced a list of more than 5,700 politically connected job applicants, and Patricia Molloy, a longtime secretary in Mayor Daley's office, testified that aides kept track of applicants and their political sponsors during much of Daley's time in office, according to a July 7, 2006 report by Rudolph Bush and Dan Mihalopoulos in the Tribune.
City officials testified that they "were heavily involved in politics and directed city workers and aspiring public employees to knock on doors and work the phones for political candidates endorsed by the mayor," the July 7, 2006 Tribune report noted.
"Witnesses who marshaled pro-Daley political groups testified that they took campaign orders from top Daley aides," the Tribune wrote, "and later got jobs and promotions from the mayor's office for loyal and effective political workers."
Sorich and three others were convicted on July 5, 2006, of carrying out what prosecutors described as fraud in hiring, "complete with sham interviews, rigged test scores and color-coded charts to track political sponsors," according to the July 6, 2006 Sun-Times.
Chicago attorney, Michael Shakman, whose federal lawsuit against the city led to anti-patronage decrees, told the Tribune on July 7, 2006, that Daley was to blame for the political hiring system. "You have to lay the responsibility squarely at the feet of Mayor Daley," he said. "These [defendants] are his people, who never would have thought of doing this without his approval."
At the sentencing hearing in November 2006, US District Judge David Coar told Sorich: “If I thought that by sentencing you I could stop this type of hiring corruption in the city of Chicago, I would throw this building at you…. But it won’t," the Tribune reported on November 21, 2006.
Obama is a political psychopath. He exhibits no shame, no matter where his money comes from. On September 5, 2007, the New York Post reported that, "Alexi Giannoulias, who became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, has pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator's Oval Office bid."
"Giannoulias is so tainted by reputed mob links," the Post noted, "that several top Illinois Dems, including the state's speaker of the House and party chairman, refused to endorse him even after he won the Democratic nomination with Obama's help."
If the Democratic party places Obama on the ballot against John McCain, Democratic voters will have no choice in this election. Once the whole truth becomes public, and it will the minute he becomes the nominee, no honest American could support sending Obama and his corrupt gang of cronies to the White House.
The most trusted leaders of the Democratic party, such as John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, ought to be ashamed of themselves for supporting Barack Obama. With use of the internet, a fifth grader could connect the dots to show a picture of a guy who was picked up in college and carried up the political ladder by a corrupt gang of influence peddlers.
John McCain is just drooling waiting for Obama to become the nominee so that he can come out with the trail of dirt that the Democratic party is too afraid to reveal this late in the in the game. If nominated, Obama will not survive a month when faced with the Republican attack machine.
If he becomes the nominee, the web of corruption leading to Obama's rise to power that this investigative journalist was able to untangle in less than three weeks, will be front page news right up until election day, handing the Republicans their only chance in hell of winning the White House.
Instead of the leaders of the Democratic party doing their homework, a small group of investigative reporters in Chicago will be credited with exposing the corrupt backbone of Obama political career and the mainstream media need only follow their lead if the Democrats hold him out to be a viable candidate.
The list of reporters deserving of credit for doing the investigative work that should have been done by the leaders of the Democratic party before they got behind Obama, includes, but is not limited to, Chicago Sun-Times reporters, Tim Novak, Dave McKinney, Fran Spielman, Chris Fusco, Natasha Korecki, Steve Warmbir and Lynn Sweet. Chicago Tribune reporters especially deserving of credit include Jeff Coen, Bob Secter, John Chase, Virginia Groark, Rick Pearson, David Jackson, John McCormick, Mickey Ciokajlo, Rudolph Bush and Dan Mihalopoulos.
This article is the first in a series that will give the details of Obama's rise to fame.
As for the most recognized allegation against Obama, that helped slumlords operate in Chicago, while accepting their campaign contributions, its true. Obama was a member of the political machine that helped a whole gang of slumlords funnel local, state and federal tax dollars, over the backs of poor people in need of affordable housing, to line their own pockets and fund the campaigns of politicians in positions to recommend and award contracts.
The Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland law firm, where Obama worked for nearly a decade, served as a hub for a slew of slumlord deals, many that benefited the firm's founder, Allison Davis, and Obama's claims that he knew nothing about the inner workings of this small firm, represent an insult to the intelligence of the American public.
Tony Rezko was Obama political Godfather. Obama received his first contributions of $2,000, to launch his political career as a state senator on July 31, 1995, from Rezko. Obama started out saying that Rezko only raised $50,000 or $60,000 for his political career but after a year of lying his way through the primaries, the latest total he gave to the Sun-Times and Tribune during interviews on March 14, 2008, adds up to $250,000.
For a year, he also minimized his relationship with Rezko by telling the media that he only had dinner or lunch with Rezko one or twice a year. But when confronted by Sun-Times reporters during the March 14 interview, with the allegation that an FBI mole saw him coming and going to Rezko’s office often and that three sources said he talked to Rezko on the phone daily, Obama changed his tune.
Now the story is that he may have talked to Rezko daily at times during campaigns but sometimes he went for a whole month without talking to him. “I have to say we're talking over the course of 10 years,” Obama said, “there might have been spurts where I talked to him daily.”
But then he added: "There might have been stretches over a month where I wouldn't have talked to him at all."
This story is a far cry from the picture Obama gave to the public of him and Rezko meeting once or twice a year, and he never did respond to the allegation by the Times reporter that an FBI mole “saw you coming and going from Rezko’s office a lot.“
Without Rezko's fundraising, Obama would not have been elected to the Illinois senate, or the US Senate, and he would not have sold the books he wrote about himself because like the Wizard of Oz, Obama is nobody special.
Even with Rezko's massive fund raising, Obama could not beat former Black Panther, Bobby Rush, in his 2000 bid for a seat in Congress. And the only reason he won the US Senate race was because his viable opponents had to drop out due to the public airing of personal scandals. Beating Alan Keyes is hardly a victory to brag about.
The media needs to quit grouping all the Obama backers under the name Antoin "Tony" Resko because the list of contributors to his political campaigns includes the names of many individuals and entities with their own agendas.
The trail of corruption involving the people raising money for Obama's political career stretches from the city of Chicago to the Illinois tollway to the O'Hare airport all the way over to Iraq. And testimony in Rezko's corruption trial reveals that an equal number of Democrat and Republican crooks benefited from all the moneymaking schemes.
Rezko is not a Democrat; he's an equal opportunity profiteer. He supported President George Bush and attended a Christmas party at the White House in December 2003, at the same time that he was a top fundraiser for Obama's US Senate campaign.
Rezko co-hosted a $3.8 million Chicago fundraiser for Bush in 2003, and on December 9, 2003, he donated $4,000 to Bush, as a "self-employed businessman," and gave another $2,000 on December 19, 2003, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Prior to backing Rod Blagojevich for governor of Illinois, Rezko threw his money behind Republican candidates for governor, including George Ryan, who was convicted of doling out leases and contracts to cronies and sentenced to prison for more than 6 years.
Rezko then switched horses and chose Blagojevich in 2002 and Obama has supported Blagojevich, even when his administration was embroiled in corruption investigations.
Recent testimony in the Rezko trial by his co-conspirator, Chicago businessman, Stuart Levine, explained that Rezko had plans for Blagojevich to be Presidential, not Obama. However, anybody following the trial knows that Blagojevich is more likely to be headed to the "Big House" rather than occupying the White House.
Obama's entering into real estate deals with Rezko, while it was public knowledge that he was under investigation for funneling illegal contributions to Illinois politicians, was not a "boneheaded" move, it was motivated by pure greed. While knowing that he would get caught up in a major scandal, Obama went ahead with the deal because he and his wife wanted that mansion, with four fireplaces, six bathrooms, and a wine cellar, period.
On March 16, 2008, the Boston Globe added an interesting twist to the story when reporting that Donna Schwan, of MetroPro Realty, which listed the mansion and lot next door for the owners, "said it is her recollection that the Obamas may not have made the highest bid, and that other bidders may have matched Rezko's bid," but the willingness of both buyers to close in June 2005, "was decisive."
Which logically means had Rezko not been willing to buy the lot in June, the deal was off.
According to an article by Edward McClelland in the February 1, 2008 Salon Magazine, when asked who approached her about the house, Donna Schwan told Salon, "I honestly don't remember. Tony Rezko lived across the street, so he'd been interested in the lot."
Any claim that Obama was unaware of the investigations into the corrupt dealings of Rezko with Illinois politicians in June 2005 is ridiculous. On February 15, 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported:
"Gov. Rod Blagojevich long has vowed to purge the Illinois tollway of cronyism, yet two of his closest friends and political advisers have links to food vendors awarded lucrative contracts to operate inside the toll road's sleek new oases, government records show."
"The Subway sandwich shops and Panda Express Asian restaurants now being installed in the tollway's seven revamped rest stops are controlled by firms with strong ties to the food-service empire of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a Blagojevich confidant who has seeded the governor's cabinet with former business underlings."
Christopher Kelly, Blagojevich's chief fundraiser, "who also recommended the tollway's executive director for his job, is an investor in at least one Rezko-controlled food firm," the Tribune wrote. On March 16, 2005, the Tribune reported that:
"City officials alleged Tuesday that a minority contractor at O'Hare International Airport acted as a front for a firm run by Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a top adviser and fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich....
"Rezko, a member of Blagojevich's kitchen cabinet of advisers, has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks following questions about his links to operators of new tollway oasis franchises. The revamp of the oases is a showcase project for the Blagojevich administration."
On May 15, 2005, the Sun-Times reported that the accusations by his father-in-law that Blagojevich doled out jobs for campaign contributions had "resulted in dozens of grand jury subpoenas being sent to the governor's office, his unpaid advisers, agency directors and his top fund-raisers".
Among those subpoenaed for documents, sources told the Times, were "Blagojevich's biggest money men, Christopher Kelly and Antoin "Tony" Rezko."
On May 20, 2005, less than a month before Obama bought the mansion, the Tribune reported that Resko, "has had a business relationship with First Lady Patti Blagojevich for eight years, the governor's office acknowledged Thursday."
Six month before Obama bought the strip of land from Rezko's "wife" to enlarge his yard, on August 28, 2005, Natasha Korecki reported in the Sun-Times that, "there's so much corruption to investigate in the Chicago area, the FBI is adding manpower."
Robert Grant, FBI Special Agent in Charge, told the Times that he had reorganized the bureau to add a third public corruption squad, giving Chicago the largest corruption unit in the country, even bigger than those in New York and Los Angeles.
"It is the second time in two years the FBI in Chicago has expanded its public corruption force," Korecki noted.
On November 6, 2006, the Times asked Obama why he did not reveal the land deal with Rezko before it was reported by the Tribune stating: "Why did you not publicly disclose the transaction after Rezko got indicted?"
"At the time, it didn't strike me as relevant," Obama answered. It seems like a lot of events were not relevant a couple months before he announced his candidacy for president.
In the November 2007, Chicago Magazine, James Merriner described a "fashion show" that took place in the first week in November 2006, to benefit St Jude Children's Research Hospital, which he said, "attracted little if any media coverage, which may have been exactly as its organizers and sponsors had hoped."
"The invitation to the affair," he wrote, "offered a veritable guidebook to political influence in Illinois, much of it centered on one St. Jude benefactor, Antoin "Tony" Rezko."
"Just three weeks earlier," Merriner pointed out, "Rezko had been indicted on charges of extorting kickbacks from businesses seeking contracts from the Blagojevich administration."
The "fashion show" was chaired by Rita Rezko, co-chaired by the Governor's wife, Patti Blagojevich, and Michelle Obama was a special guest that day, according to Merriner.
Two weeks after the "fashion show," on November 17, 2006, the Sun-Times reported that Blagojevich's wife Patti got nearly $50,000 from a real estate deal in late 2002 involving Rezko.
In terms of dollar amounts of campaign contributions directly from Rezko in Illinois, the top four earners were, the now deceased President of the Cook County Board, John Stroger, Blagojevich, Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley, and Obama - in that order.
Rezko was the head of Stroger's campaign finance committee at the same time that he served on Obama US Senate finance committee.
When it came time for Stroger's reelection campaign, in the midst of the erupting Rezko scandals in the media, on April 8, 2005, the Tribune reported that Stroger "has selected beleaguered businessman and political powerbroker Antoin "Tony" Rezko as one of the honorary chairs of his campaign fundraiser next month."
Stroger appointed Rezko's wife Rita to the Cook County Employee Appeals Board, which hears cases filed by fired or disciplined workers, at a part-time salary of $37,000 a year.
According to documents filed in the Rezko corruption case, this was Rita's sole income when she supposedly came up with a $125,000 down payment and secured a $500,000 mortgage to buy the $625,00 lot next to Obama. Less than a year after Obama bought his strip of land, Rita sold the rest of the lot to attorney Michael Sreenan, and made a profit of more than $50,000.
On February 27, 2007, the Sun-Times pointed out that Obama's "new neighbor, Michael Sreenan," had contributed $5,000 to Obama's campaigns. Less than a year after buying the lot, Sreenan put it up for sale for $1.5 million in October 2007.
Of course John Stroger will not be answering any questions about corruption, or any other matter, because he died on January 18, 2008. His former chief of staff and godson, Orlando Jones, will not be talking either because he was found dead of self-inflicted gun wounds in September 2007, "just as a corruption inquiry targeting him was heating up," according to a September 7, 2007 report by CBS News channel 2 Chicago.
"Jones left his position in county government to create a lobbying firm in association with Tony Rezko, who has been indicted on fraud charges," CBS reported.
Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica told CBS that Orlando Jones’ death raised many questions about the Cook County president’s office. “Some of these matters Jones was involved in that are currently being investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office are reaching to the highest level of county government,” Peraica said.
Obama endorsed John Stroger's son, Todd Stroger, in his bid for Cook County Board President after his father died. Todd was in the news as recently as March 24, 2008, when the Sun-Times published a front-page article reporting that his cousin Donna Dunnings, the county’s new chief financial officer, was receiving a 12% pay increase.
Dunnings’ salary will be the largest increase of any county employee, with the average increase being around 5%. She will make nearly $160,000 with the pay increase, or roughly $5,000 more than her predecessor made at the job, according to the Times.
Mayor Daley endorsed Obama immediately after he announced he was running for president and in return, Obama endorsed Daley's reelection for Mayor right smack in the middle of major federal investigations of corruption in the Daley Administration.
Obama's ties to the corrupt Daley machine began when he was dating his wife Michelle and she brought him into the fold. Valerie Jarrett, the deputy chief of staff to Mayor Daley, hired Michelle as her assistant in 1991. Daley made Jarrett the chairman of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development and Michelle worked as her assistant in that Department during 1992-93.
From there Michelle moved up the political tiers to the University of Chicago and ultimately got an overnight pay raise from about $121,000 to close to $317,000, after Obama became a US Senator, as a vice president at the University of Chicago.
Susan Sher, was corporation counsel in the Daley Administration when Michelle was hired back in the early 1990s, and Sher is now Michelle's boss at the University of Chicago, according to the April 22, 2007 Chicago Tribune.
Shortly after Obama entered the US Senate, Michelle was also handed a position on the board of TreeHouse Foods. Wal-Mart is the largest customer of TreeHouse Foods. Factoring in stock options and other payments, the value of her compensation package for serving on the board in 2006 was $101,083, according to the Tribune report.
On May 14, 2007, during a meeting with the AFL-CIO in New Jersey, Obama was asked about Wal-Mart and he said: "I won't shop there." Michelle resigned from the board of TreeHouse eight days after husband said he would not shop at Wal-Mart, CBS News reported on May 27, 2007.
When it came time for Obama's US Senate campaign, Valerie Jarrett became the campaign finance chairman and worked hand and hand with fellow finance committee members, Rita and Tony Rezko, and his former boss at the law firm, Allison Davis, in fundraising endeavors. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, Tim Novak reported in the Sun-Times on April 23, 2007.
Jarrett is now the CEO of Habitat Co, a real estate development and management firm which manages the housing program for the Chicago Housing Authority, the entity mandated to administer public housing, and she serves as an unpaid advisor to Obama's Presidential campaign.
Mayor Daley's brother Bill also became an Obama advisor. Mayor Daley's chief image defender, David Axelrod, is a top strategist for Obama's campaign and he was also the media consultant for Obama's US Senate campaign.
On April 1, 2007, Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who is now chairman of the political science department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told Ben Wallace-Wells in the New York Times: “David Axelrod’s mostly been visible in Chicago in the last decade as Daley’s public relations strategist and the guy who goes on television to defend Daley from charges of corruption”.
The scandals involving the Daley administration have no beginning and no end. In January 2004, the Sun-Times published a three-part series exposing widespread corruption in the Hired Truck Program and revealed that some companies were being paid for doing little or no work and that some had mob connections or were tied to city employees.
On January 25, 2005, the Associated Press reported that trucking company manager, John Cannatello, the 16th person charged in the scandal, was charged with getting $6.6 million in city hauling work "by giving campaign contributions and cash to officials and falsely claiming his firm was eligible for jobs set aside for women-owned businesses."
According to the article, city officials said the Hired Truck program, "which at its height doled out $38 million worth of work in one year to contractors without bids, was designed to save taxpayers money by outsourcing hauling jobs that otherwise would require the city to buy trucks and insurance."
On June 6, 2006, the Sun-Times reported that the brother-in-law of Cook County Commissioner, John Daley, was sentenced to 18 months in prison "for taking about $5,400 in bribes to steer city business to a Hired Truck company."
Of course John Daley is another brother of Mayor Daley.
On January 6, 2006, the New York Times ran the headline, "Corruption Scandal Loosening Mayor Daley's Grip on Chicago," and reported that a "wide-ranging federal investigation into what prosecutors describe as "pervasive fraud" in hiring and contracts at City Hall has led to 30 indictments, including two senior administrators close to the mayor, and a dozen cabinet-level resignations. "
The Tribune broke the hiring scandal on April 29, 2005, after federal agents carried out an all-night raid of Daley's patronage office at City Hall and less than three months later, Robert Sorich, the patronage chief in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and three former city officials, were arrested and charged with fraud to rig city hiring for 12 years.
During the criminal trial, prosecutors produced a list of more than 5,700 politically connected job applicants, and Patricia Molloy, a longtime secretary in Mayor Daley's office, testified that aides kept track of applicants and their political sponsors during much of Daley's time in office, according to a July 7, 2006 report by Rudolph Bush and Dan Mihalopoulos in the Tribune.
City officials testified that they "were heavily involved in politics and directed city workers and aspiring public employees to knock on doors and work the phones for political candidates endorsed by the mayor," the July 7, 2006 Tribune report noted.
"Witnesses who marshaled pro-Daley political groups testified that they took campaign orders from top Daley aides," the Tribune wrote, "and later got jobs and promotions from the mayor's office for loyal and effective political workers."
Sorich and three others were convicted on July 5, 2006, of carrying out what prosecutors described as fraud in hiring, "complete with sham interviews, rigged test scores and color-coded charts to track political sponsors," according to the July 6, 2006 Sun-Times.
Chicago attorney, Michael Shakman, whose federal lawsuit against the city led to anti-patronage decrees, told the Tribune on July 7, 2006, that Daley was to blame for the political hiring system. "You have to lay the responsibility squarely at the feet of Mayor Daley," he said. "These [defendants] are his people, who never would have thought of doing this without his approval."
At the sentencing hearing in November 2006, US District Judge David Coar told Sorich: “If I thought that by sentencing you I could stop this type of hiring corruption in the city of Chicago, I would throw this building at you…. But it won’t," the Tribune reported on November 21, 2006.
Obama is a political psychopath. He exhibits no shame, no matter where his money comes from. On September 5, 2007, the New York Post reported that, "Alexi Giannoulias, who became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, has pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator's Oval Office bid."
"Giannoulias is so tainted by reputed mob links," the Post noted, "that several top Illinois Dems, including the state's speaker of the House and party chairman, refused to endorse him even after he won the Democratic nomination with Obama's help."
If the Democratic party places Obama on the ballot against John McCain, Democratic voters will have no choice in this election. Once the whole truth becomes public, and it will the minute he becomes the nominee, no honest American could support sending Obama and his corrupt gang of cronies to the White House.
Barack Obama - Operation Board Games For Slumlords
April 7, 2008 Evelyn Pringle
Barack Obama has a long history of working with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and governors of Illinois, including the current Governor Rod Blagojevich, in doling government funding for housing development in Chicago. His history is hardly a model of success, except for the hundred of millions in profits made by the chosen few slumlords.
Less than a year ago, in the April 26, 2007, Chicago Sun-Times, Fran Spielman reported that Chicago aldermen were accusing the Daley administration "of being asleep at the switch while low-income housing projects developed by the now-indicted Tony Rezko collapsed into disrepair."
"The spigot of loans, grants and tax credits should have been cut off when the first of 30 taxpayer-supported Rezko buildings in Chicago fell into disrepair, the aldermen said," according to the report.
Instead, Spielman said, a “Sun-Times investigation showed that the city, state and federal governments kept the gravy train rolling -- to the tune of $100 million between 1989 and 1998."
The lending continued, the Times noted, even as the city repeatedly sued Rezko's development company, Rezmar, "for such basics as no heat."
"They were going after people for being slum landlords in one department and loaning them money in another," said Alderman Freddrenna Lyle.
Obama now wants to bring this dog and pony show to Washington. I can see it now. His former boss, Allison Davis, at the Davis, Miner & Barnhill law firm, that served as a hub for Rezko's thriving slumlord business for a decade before Davis quit and became partners with Rezko, will be appointed to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Davis and his partners, which include his sons Jared and Cullen, have received more than $100 million in taxpayer subsidies to build and rehab apartments and homes over the past 10 years and have made at least $4 million in development fees, according to the Times.
"Davis has gotten deal after deal from the mayor, helping to make Davis one of the city's top developers," Tim Novak noted in the November 7, 2007 Sun-Times.
There's already a plan in place to guarantee that the Chicago model of "community development" is carried out in the White House. In his "Plan to Fight Poverty in America," Obama says, "we should create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to develop affordable housing in mixed-income neighborhoods."
The Plan will create a "White House Office of Urban Policy" to develop a strategy for metropolitan America, and Obama will appoint a Director of Urban Policy who will report directly to him, as president, to "coordinate all federal urban programs," the Plan states.
Mayor Daley will probably be hired for this gig. The Plan explains that Obama will task his new Director "to work across federal agencies and with community and business leaders to identify and address the unique economic development barriers of every major metropolitan area in the country."
While climbing the political ladder, Obama held himself out to be a champion of rights for minority-owned businesses. According to an article on Black Enterprize.com, "it is Obama's strong record when it comes to supporting minority-owned businesses that has black business leaders working overtime to send the 42-year-old congressman to Washington."
However, an example of the Chicago version of a minority-owned business is DV Urban Realty Partners, where Allison Davis, who is an African American millionaire many times over, owns 51%, and Robert Vanecko, Mayor Daley's nephew, owns 49%.
On July 18, 2007, Obama discussed his plan to deal with urban poverty in a speech at the Town Hall Education Arts and Recreation Center in Washington and started out by tugging the heart strings by invoking the name of Bobby Kennedy and stated:
"It's been four decades since Bobby Kennedy crouched in a shack along the Mississippi Delta and looked into the wide, listless eyes of a hungry child. Again and again he tried to talk to this child, but each time his efforts were met with only a blank stare of desperation.
"And when Kennedy turned to the reporters traveling with him, with tears in his eyes he asked a single question about poverty in America: 'How can a country like this allow it?'"
"Forty years later," Obama said, "we're still asking that question."
First of all, "Barack Obama you are no Robert Kennedy," and we're still asking the question because the careers of politicians like Obama are funded by a political mafia which has turned helping the poor into a cottage industry.
During his speech, Obama himself spelled out why low-income housing developers get away with funneling tax dollars through poor people in cities like Chicago without drawing any scrutiny, when he stated:
"These Americans cannot hire lobbyists to roam the halls of Congress on their behalf, and they cannot write thousand-dollar campaign checks to make their voices heard. They suffer most from a politics that has been tipped in favor of those with the most money, and influence, and power."
In Obama's case, a whole gang of slumlords in Illinois made their "voices heard" by writing campaign checks to fund his rise to fame. But as long as the focus of the slumlord allegations remains solely on a crook named Rezko, the other members of the gang will not get the credit they deserve.
One fact is beyond dispute. Without the fundraising of his political Godfather, Rezko, Obama's rise to power would not have occurred. However, Rezko was not the pied piper of Hamlin who led Illinois politicians astray. It's the other way around. Without the cooperation of the corrupt government officials, Rezko would not have been able to fund their political campaigns.
In Illinois, favored politicians are joined at the hip when it comes to fundraising. For instance, from 1999 through 2006, an analysis by the Chicago Tribune shows Obama took in more than $1.5 million from some 700 people who also contributed to Mayor Daley during his political career.
A cursory review of Illinois campaign records shows Allison Davis and his family members giving close to $16,000 to Obama's presidential campaign. The Sun-Times reports that Davis has donated more than $400,000 to dozens of political campaigns, and the top beneficiaries include Mayor Daley, Blagojevich and Obama.
The truth about all the scams run by the political mafia operating in Illinois is only coming out now because of Rezko's corruption trial, and if the Democrats want to lose any chance of winning the White House, all they have to do is nominate Obama.
This case is only the first of what could be many to go to trial. Other criminal charges are pending against several people listed in the indictment, and civil lawsuits have been filed against many of the same people and are awaiting the outcome of the criminal cases.
If Obama had an ounce of respect for Democratic voters, he'd drop out of the race before the details of the corruption in Illinois spread to the rest of the country. If the leaders of the Democratic party had a lick of sense, they would inform Obama right now that under no circumstances will his name be on the ballot come fall.
Political junkies know the details of all the sordid scandals swirling around Obama in Chicago, but the average American voter does not have a clue.
The prosecution team is led by the US Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, of Scooter Libby fame; the same guy who put the last Illinois Governor behind bars and convicted a host of government officials from the Daley administrations who were involved in what prosecutors called "pervasive fraud" to rig city hiring for 12 years with persons who got out the vote for Mayor Daley, and the candidates he endorsed, as well as numerous crooks rounded up during the scandal involving Daley's Hired Truck program.
The list of names in the indictment includes about eight persons referred to as "Co-Schemers," and reads like a "who's who list" of major campaign donors to Obama, Blagojevich, Daley and other powerful Illinois politicians.
Blagojevich is referred to as "Public Official A," Obama is referred to as a "political candidate," and there is a list of "Individuals" from "Individual A" all the way up to "Individual HH."
By now, everybody following the case knows the names of the "Co-Schemers" and "Individuals", and the Republicans can use the court filings as a roadmap for their plan of attack on Obama. In fact, they are probably editing their talking points for cable news shows as we speak. They no doubt already have video clips in the can of every failed low-income housing project in Chicago connected to Obama to splash across the airwaves the minute he is nominated.
In addition, the Chicago Tribune has two ace reporters, Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, stationed at the courthouse, who provide a daily blog called "Gavel-to-Gavel" on the Tribune website which gives a blow-by-blow account of the live testimony in the trial every few hours.
The names of corrupt politicians and power brokers from both the Democratic and Republican parties are being dropped before the jury like flies. Many of the witnesses, including the main co-defendant, Chicago businessman Stuart Levine, have already pleaded guilty and are testifying under grants of immunity in hope of getting a lighter sentence, which means they have everything to gain by testifying about the other crooks.
Although the Tribune's Gavel-to-Gavel coverage is just as good as having a front-row seat in the courtroom, the Obama camp apparently feels the need to monitor the trial first-hand. On March 14, 2008, during an interview with the Sun-Times, a reporter said to Obama: "You have somebody in the courtroom to monitor the trial, right?"
"We may," he replied, "I think that may be true."
The case involves the corruption of two state regulatory boards. The investigation, dubbed "Operation Board Games," by the Feds, began in December 2003, based on information supplied by an informant. Its now obvious that Rezko was aware of the investigation as early as 2004, because during a January 16, 2007, court hearing his attorney, Joe Duffy, told US District Judge Amy St Eve that he was hired in 2004.
"And my guess is you hired Mr. Duffy to deal with the Feds?" the judge said to Rezko, and Rezko replied, "Yes, your Honor."
The first board controls the Teachers Pension System, which administers pensions and benefits for all Illinois teachers except for those in Chicago, and the Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves all proposals for construction projects that involve medical facilities in Illinois.
The Teacher's Pension fund has over $30 billion in assets. Investment firms that want to do business with the fund submit proposals, and the board votes on whether to approve the proposal. Some members of the board are elected by teachers in the state, others are appointed by the governor and others serve by virtue of their state office such as the school superintendent.
On Blagojevich took office, the Schemers were able to stack the TRS board with members who would vote whichever way they were told. Once they accomplished that feat, they demanded kickbacks from investment firms in exchange for the approval of their proposals.
Rezko's partner in the Rezmar development company, Daniel Mahru, is referred to as "Individual Z" in the indictment, and according to court filings, Rezko told Mahru that "$500 million" of TRS money was earmarked for their company. Mahru is reportedly cooperating with federal investigators.
In addition to lining their own pockets, the money gained through the scheme was funneled to the campaigns of Blagojevich and Obama. Prosecutors have identified two $10,000 payments that were made to Obama's US Senate campaign through straw donors Joseph Aramanda and Elie Maloof, which originated from a kickback paid by investment firm, Glencoe Capital, to secure approval for a $50 million deal.
Aramanda and Maloof also each gave Obama $1,000 for his failed run for Congress in 2000. Once Obama became a US Senator, Aramanda's son was granted a coveted intern position in Obama's Senate office in Washington during the summer of 2005, based on a request which the Obama's camp has admitted came from Rezko.
Levine was appointed to the TRS Board in 2000, by Republican Governor George Ryan and was reappointed in 2003 by Blagojevich. As part of the team led by Levine to rig the votes, Blagojevich appointed, attorney Anthony Abboud, to serve. He is "Individual Q" in the indictment. He has been donating money to Obama's political career since March 2000, with a total of more than $2,800.
Blagojevich also appointed, attorney Jack Carriglio, or "Individual R." On June 30, 2003, Carriglio donated $1,000 for Obama's US Senate campaign.
The TRS story has the makings of a great Hollywood movie with subplots upon subplots. Allison Davis, or "Individual BB," was a friend of Hollywood producer Tom Rosenberg, who produced the movie, "The Human Stain," with Anthony Hopkins and Davis in a small part. He also produced the Oscar winning, "Million Dollar Baby."
Rosenberg, or "Individual J," is a central figure in the case. His investment firm, Capri Capital Advisers, a real estate manager, had done about a billion dollars of business with the TRS in the past and wanted to do more. In 2004, the Schemers tried to coerce a bribe from Rosenberg, or in the alternative a $1.5 million contribution for Blagojevich, in exchange for approval of a $220 million deal.
According to the indictment, Davis admitted to Rosenberg that Rezko, and Blagojevich's top fund raiser, Christopher Kelly, or Co-Schemer B, had asked Davis who could raise funds for Blagojevich from the state pension system and he volunteered Rosenberg's name.
During his testimony on April 1, 2008, Levine explained that he was already mad at Rosenberg because he expected $500,000 for help he gave Rosenberg in getting the TRS board to approve a $100 million deal in 2001, but he never came through with the money.
The only benefit Levine received from the deal was that Rosenberg said Levine no longer had to pay him $50,000 a year for lobbying efforts, according to the monitoring by Gavel-to-Gavel.
However, all hell broke lose when Rosenberg refused pay the $1.5 million. During the trial, prosecutors played tapes of phone calls in which comical conversations were discussed between the bipartisan group of Co-Schemers and Individuals, as they were trying to figure out how to deal with Rosenberg and his threats.
The jury heard conversations between Republican power broker, William Cellini, or Co-Schemer A, and Levine, in which they said Rosenberg was threatening to "stand at State and Madison," and make public the attempt to extort money for Blagojevich's campaign and that he would "take them all down," and even threatened to go to the Feds.
They claimed Rosenberg said he considered Rezko and Christopher Kelly the two most likely members of Blagojevich's inner circle to end up in prison someday, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Kelly has been charged in a separate case with hiding $1.3 million from the IRS and using money from his business to pay gambling debts with Chicago bookies and Las Vegas casinos.
Levine testified that Rezko wanted things to settle down and quoted Rezko saying, "Mr. Rosenberg was a dangerous individual, and nobody wanted to be put in a dangerous situation."
Levine said Rezko told him that TRS should grant Capri the $220 million. "But, in fact, that should be the last business that Mr. Rosenberg does with the State of Illinois," Levine recalled Rezko telling him, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Levine testified that Rezko said Blagojevich had been briefed on the plan and agreed with it.
During his testimony, Levine also told the jury that Rezko had plans for Blagojevich to run for President. "He said that he had raised a great deal of money for Gov. Blagojevich and that he had great hopes and expectations that Gov. Blagojevich would run for president," Levine told the jury.
"And although he knew it was a long shot, he was working toward that end," Levine said.
He also told the jury about an October 29, 2003, trip in a plane he chartered to carry Blagojevich and others to fundraisers in New York, during which Levine thanked Blagojevich for reappointing him to the Planning board and said the governor told him, "Never discuss any state board with me, discuss them with either Tony Rezko or Chris Kelly."
The TRS part of the story has many subplots. For instance, in 2005, the Feds issued a subpoena to the TRS for records pertaining to a $150 million deal approved for the Carlyle Group, in which Robert Kjellander, or Individual K, described in the August 11, 2005 Sun-Times as the "national Republican Party treasurer," and "a Springfield lobbyist with close ties to the White House," was to be paid a $4.5 million fee.
The most famous investor in the Carlyle Group is the family of Osama bin Laden, and its most famous advisor is the first President George Bush. On October 26, 2001, the New York Times reported that the "Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its financial ties with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for its connections to influential Washington political figures."
"It came largely as a result of public controversy about the family's stake in a Carlyle fund that invests in buyouts of military and aerospace companies," a Carlyle executive told the Times.
After the September 11 attacks, the Times noted, "the investment was criticized amid speculation that the family might profit from increased military spending from America's war on terrorism."
Kjellander reportedly headed Bush's reelection campaign in three states and in December 2003, he was able to obtain an invitation from the Bush administration for Levine, Rezko, and Cellini, along with their wives, to attend a Christmas Party at the White House.
Apparently Kjellander is still in good graces with the Republicans because he is "helping plan this September's Republican National Convention in Minneapolis," according to John Kass in the March 7, 2008 Chicago Tribune.
The subpoena issued to the TRS in 2005, also included a request for records involving a $10 million investment approved for Hopewell Ventures in 2003, whose principals included David Wilhelm, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who is now a super delegate who openly supports Obama. Wilhelm was a main player in getting members approved to serve on the Health Facilities Planning Board.
The Board is made up of nine members and approval of a project requires a majority of five votes. At the center of this scheme was a proposal by Mercy Health System to gain approval to build a new hospital in Crystal Lake. On April 21, 2004, the board voted to approve the project, even though state analysts said the hospital was not needed.
Levine was also appointed to the Planning Board by a Republican Governor. However, he established himself as a bipartisan crook early in the trial. On March 10, 2008, he told the jury that even before he got involved with the Blagojevich administration, he used to funnel campaign contributions to Democratic candidates through straw donors at the request of former Chicago Alderman Edward Vrdolyak, who has also been indicted on federal fraud and bribery charges in a related case.
Levine's term on the Board was set to expire in 2004, but the Schemers made sure he remained on the panel. On March 10, 2008, Rezko's lawyer questioned Susan Lichtenstein, former general counsel to Blagojevich, about a series of email exchanges she had related to the appointments of members to the Board in 2003.
One of the emails was between Lichtenstein and the office of Wilhelm, who ran Blagojevich's 2002 campaign, which suggested several appointees, including Levine.
"With the e-mails," Gavel-to-Gavel reports, "Rezko's lawyers appear to be pushing the point that Rezko wasn't alone in backing Levine and that Levine's appointment had a broad array of support."
While all this was going on, as a state senator, Obama was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. As such, his name also appeared in the email exchanges as a member of a team working on legislation to keep the board from expiring under a sunset provision of Illinois law.
The email exchanges said, Wilhelm had “worked closely” over six months with state legislators to extend the life of the board and listed Democrat and Republican leaders in the Illinois Senate and House, including Obama.
The exchange with the names of four candidates for the board stated that “our attached recommendations reflect that involvement” with the political leaders.
In the end, the changes made by the lawmakers in 2003 dropped the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, making it much easier to stack the panel, and by the summer of 2003, the Schemers controlled a 5-bloc vote.
At the time, Thomas Beck was the chairman of panel, and Levine was the vice-chairman. Beck testified, under a grant of immunity, and told the jury that he took a $1,000 donation for Blagojevich when he met with Rezko to seek reappointment.
The persons chosen to guarantee the votes were 3 doctors: Imad Almanaseer, Michel Malek and Fortunee Massuda.
Massuda, or "Individual Y," gave Obama $2,000 on January 26, 2004. Malek is "Individual FF," and he donated $10,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign on June 30, 2003, and another $500 in September 2003.
Almanaseer, or "Individual EE," contributed $1,000 to Obama on March 12, 2004, and ponied up another $2,000 on May 24, 2004.
This part of the scheme also opens up several subplots. The person responsible for working out the details for the kickback on the Mercy proposal was Jacob Kiferbaum.
Kiferbaum was the builder hired by Mercy to construct the new hospital. Levine told the jury about a long history of taking bribes from Kiferbaum, who would then pad his bills to hide the payments. He said the money would be passed through middlemen, such as John Glennon, a prominent Republican insider, who had served on a pension board with Levine.
The new hospital was never built after details about the crimes became known. Kiferbaum has pleaded guilty in the case and is cooperating with the Feds.
When referring to the fact that Obama's name shows up in the email exchanges as reviewing the recommendations to appoint Levine and the others to the Planning Board, the media is always careful to mention that Obama is not accused of anything.
However, on March 14, 2008, during an interview with the Tribune, Obama was finally asked directly: "Did you have discussions with him [Rezko] about either recommendations that you sought for people or recommendations that he was making?"
"I did not have any formal discussions with Tony," Obama said, "beyond one individual, and that was Dr. Eric Whitaker, who ultimately became the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health and who had been a longtime friend of mine, who I had known since he was getting his master's at Harvard and I was at the law school there."
"He had expressed an interest in that post," Obama informed the Tribune.
"I think he had applied separately," Obama said, "but I don't recall whether I called Tony or he called me."
"And I simply said, 'I think this guy is outstanding and is certainly somebody who is worthy of an interview,'" he added.
"And was it your understanding that Tony was going to effectuate that?" the Tribune asked.
"No," Obama said. "What I knew was, and I don't think this has been disputed, that he was one of a number of people within the Blagojevich circle who were, you know, helping to screen or interview potential candidates for administration posts."
The job Obama recommended for his friend paid about $150,000 a year. However, Eric Whitaker is now an executive vice-president of the University of Chicago Medical Center, according to the March 9, 2008, Sun-Times. That would be the same employer that pays Michelle Obama a salary of close to $350,000 as a vice president.
But Obama's using the lure of the pension funds to raise campaign money goes way back. In 1999, he "was instrumental in the formation of a coalition of black investment firm owners and legislators in Illinois to create an initiative that would award black-owned firms with the management of some of the state's retirement funds," according to a 2004 article on Black Enterprise.com.
"He's out there fighting for us," said John Rogers, chairman and CEO of Chicago-based Ariel Capital Management in the article. Rogers donated $9,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign.
"He was a catalyst to pull [everyone] together to create the initiative to have these organizations let minority firms do business with state funds," said Lee Holland, managing partner and Chief Investment Officer of Holland Capital. Lee Holland, his wife and two of his partners donated $35,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign. In the October 1, 2007, New York Times, Christopher Drew and Raymond Hernandez reported that:
"Members of the group, the Alliance of Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs, say Mr. Obama checked into their problems and helped start a drive that enabled minority investment executives to win millions of dollars in business from the state's giant pension funds."
However, the Times pointed out that Obama's political career had benefited many times over from his ties to the group. "Several of the businessmen or their wives would help clear the debts from his Congressional race," the Times wrote, "and six of the group's members are now among the top fund-raisers for his presidential campaign, according to campaign finance records."
All totaled, the Times said, employees at more than 30 companies listed on the group's website and their relatives donated more than $300,000 to help Obama win his US Senate seat in 2004 and "set fund-raising records early in the 2008 presidential race."
In fact, when Illinois State Senator Emil Jones, Jr became the State Senate president in 2003, he assigned Obama to a committee looking into the pension questions "to help raise his political profile," according the Times.
During this period, the Times says, campaign finance records show executives from Ariel Capital, Loop Capital, Holland Capital and Capri Capital, "sharply increased their donations" to Obama's State Senate campaign fund.
"And once he began his campaign for the United States Senate," the Times wrote, "they quickly became a fund-raising core that has carried over into the presidential race."
Obama quit the State Senate committee in late 2003 as his race for the US Senate heated up, "and just as the panel began a series of hearings that produced the most substantial changes," the Times reports.
The changes generated millions dollars in fees for some of the firms. For instance, Loop saw its fees from one pension fund rise to $2.4 million in 2006, from $5,700 in 2001, and Holland and Ariel both got several hundred million from the pension funds to invest.
John Rogers and two other people at Ariel each bundled at least $50,000 in donations for Obama's presidential campaign, according to the Times.
An October 3, 2005 article in the Sun-Times, by Chris Fusco and Dave McKinney, reported that Ariel and its top executives also contributed $117,500 to Blagojevich's campaign.
Although the current criminal case focuses on two boards, the testimony of Jill Hayden, the former head of Blagojevich's Office of Boards and Commissions, established that the same process was used to fill some 1,500 positions, on 300 boards and commissions, that control a wide variety of regulatory decisions, which would include other pension funds.
Blagojevich appointed Davis to serve on a separate pension board, the Illinois State Board of Investment, which oversees funds for state employees, judges and legislators, and "also has been under federal investigation," according to the November 7, 2007 Sun-Times
In the September 23, 2007, Sun-Times, in reference to the "minority owned" DV Urban, of Davis and Robert Vanecko, Tim Novak reported that a "nephew of Mayor Daley stands to make millions of dollars from city-connected pension funds" in "winning business from pension funds for city workers, cops, teachers and CTA employees".
All total, the pension funds gave DV Urban $68 million. The first investor was the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, but according to Novak's report, the board members did not learn that DV Urban was owned by the Mayor's nephew until 6 months after they voted to approve the investment.
As of September 23, 2007, Davis and Vanecko had received $1 million in management fees and they are "guaranteed at least $3 million in management fees and could make as much as $8.4 million before the pension deal ends on Dec. 31, 2014," Novak reports.
In addition, Davis and Vanecko will share in any profits from the real estate deals and can earn a 3% fee on the property they develop.
Obama says he met Rezko, when he got a call right out of the blue from David Brint, after he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, wanting to know if he would be interested in being a developer for Rezko's real estate company, Rezmar.
Because they read that he was interested in community development work, Obama says, Rezko and his two partners, Mahru and Brint, met with him to discuss the job. "I said no, but I remained friendly with all three of them," Obama said in the Chicago Tribune on November 1, 2006.
"All three of them remained great contributors of mine," he added.
And so they did. According to the latest tally given during interviews with the Tribune and Sun-Times on March 14, 2008, the amount attributed to Rezko went from a claim of $50,000 or $60,000 a year ago, to Rezko raising roughly $250,000.
In fact, Obama told the Tribune that Rezko "might have raised $50,000 to $75,000" for one campaign alone in his failed run for Congress in 2000.
The Rezmar connection is a gift that keeps on giving. In February 2007, David Brint gave Obama $4,600, and his wife, Elizabeth gave contributed $2,300. Brint also hosted a fundraiser for Obama in June 2007. Elizabeth donated a couple thousand in 2002 and $2,000 more in 2003 as well.
On March 17, 2000, Mahru gave Obama $1,000, listing himself as president of Rezmar. On March 4, 2004, he donated a whopping $5,000. Mahru also tossed $1,000 to Mayor Daley in 2001 and gave him another $1,500 in 2003.
But then Rezko and Mahru had plenty of money to throw around. By 1998, Rezko had a reported net worth of $34 million and Mahru was worth $14.6 million, according to the "Rezmar who's who list," published in the April 24, 2007 Sun-Times.
After turning down the surprise job offer from Rezko, Obama expects voters to believe that he just happened to get hired at the small 12-attorney Davis law firm, which just happened to represent Rezmar in development deals. And then a couple years later, Rezko's companies just happened to appear on the very first contributions made to the "Friends of Obama" committee to launch his political career as a state senator.
On March 14, when asked by the Sun-Times, whether the subject of politics was mentioned at his first meeting with Rezko, Obama stated: "Quite frankly, I don't recall. I think it was talking about the possibility of me working for him."
About the same time that Rezko began funding Obama's campaign for the Illinois senate, Rezmar began developing low-income apartments with three non-profit groups, which were also represented by the Davis law firm, including the Chicago Urban League, the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp, and the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization.
Bishop Arthur Brazier, described as "a powerful ally of the mayor" by the Sun-Times, founded the Woodlawn Preservation Corp and the Fund for Community Redevelopment.
Davis was the treasurer for Woodlawn when the group went into business with Rezmar and he also served on the board that ran the Fund for Community Redevelopment.
By the time Rezmar started working with the non-profits, two of its earlier projects were having major problems, including a building where the tenants were without heat for five weeks between December 1996 and February 1997. The city had to sue to get the heat turned back on and in fact Chicago sued Rezmar for failing to heat buildings at least a dozen times, according to the Sun-Times.
Obama got a $1,000 campaign donation from Rezmar on January 14, 1997, while those tenets were without heat, Novak reports. Records show that Obama also received a $1,000 contribution from Resko Concessions, a day earlier on January 13, 1997.
Rezmar rehabbed 15 buildings between 1995 and 1998 in partnership with the nonprofits.. Each project involved public and private financing including loans from the city or state, federal low-income-housing tax credits and bank loans. The way it was set up, Rezko and Mahru always came out ahead because Rezmar was paid part of the development fees when a deal closed and the remainder when tenants moved in.
The projects were supposed to provide housing for low-income tenents for at least 25 years. "But the first deal Rezmar struck with the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp. collapsed in just six and a half years, when the state sued for foreclosure," according to a report by Novak in the April 23, 2007 Sun-Times.
Of the buildings managed by Rezko and Mahru, 17 ended up in foreclosure, six buildings are currently boarded up, hundreds of the apartments are vacant and in need of major repairs, and taxpayers are left stuck with millions in unpaid loans, Novak reports.
An "Operation Board Games" investigation should be conducted on the slumlord business in Illinois over the past 15 years. The Chicago Sun-Times reporters, and especially Tim Novak, have already done an excellent job in connecting all the dots.
Daley became Mayor in 1989 and Rezmar got its first city loan of $629,000 the same year, even though Rezko and Mahru had no construction experience.
Rezmar stopped making the $2,982 payments three years later and missed 16 payments before the city changed the terms so that Rezmar would only have to pay $465 a month, according to the Sun-Times report by Novak.
Over the years Davis has been appointed to serve on the Illinois Capital Development Board, which oversees state construction projects, and the Chicago Public Building Commission. Daily appointed Davis to the Chicago Plan Commission in 1991, where he stayed until January 2006.
The Plan Commission must approve, disapprove or defer any proposal by a public body or agency "to acquire, dispose, or change any real property within the territorial limits of the city" on the basis of whether or not the referral complies with the city's long range planning goals and objectives, according to its web site.
After Rezko got Davis appointed to the pension fund Board, Davis helped Rezmar in two major developments as a member of the Plan Commission, even though the two men were business partners. The first vote involved a housing development along the Chicago River at Irving Park Road and was cast a month after Davis won a seat on the Board.
The second was cast a year later in March 2004, for the approval of Rezmar's proposal for the 62 acre South Loop project. This deal collapsed shortly before Rezko was indicted in October 2006, according to Novak.
Daley made Thomas McNulty, the attorney who acquired the buildings for Rezmar, president of the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, a charity run by the city that doles out tax dollars to landlords to subsidize rent payments for the poor. Rezmar received more than $2.7 million from this charity fund, according to the "Rezmar who's-who list" in the April 24, 2007 Sun-Times.
Mahru was appointed to the Illinois Affordable Housing Advisory Commission in 1993, which helps decide which projects get state funds, by Governor Jim Edgar.
Obama began serving on the board of Woods Fund, a Chicago charity foundation, in 1993, the same year he was hired by Davis' law firm. In 2000, Davis went to the foundation to help fund his plans to build low income housing. Obama voted to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners, a $17 million partnership that Davis still operates, according to a report by Novak in the November 29, 2007 Sun-Times.
Davis used some of the money to build a 72-unit apartment building for senior citizens, a $10 million project built with a $5.7 million city loan, which earned Davis nearly $700,000 in development fees, Novak says city records show.
Davis' son Cullen is paid to manage the building, which opened three years ago with a ceremony featuring Mayor Daley.
Kelly King Dibble was the vice president for business development at Rezmar and she became the executive director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority once Blagojevich became Governor. She is now an attorney with, The Northern Trust Company, the same company that financed Obama's mansion.
Velma Butler, an investor in Rezko's 62 acre Loop project, also serves on the Illinois Housing Authority. She donated $1,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign in 2003.
On October 1, 2006, Daley appointed Martin Nesbitt chairperson of the Chicago Housing Authority. The CHA was created for "the purposes of engaging in the development, acquisition, leasing, operation, and administration of a Low Rent Housing Program and other federally assisted programs," according to the agency’s 2005 annual financial report.
Nesbitt succeeded Sharon Gist Gilliam, according to the CHA web site. Gilliam is a former board member of Rezmar. She told the Sun-Times that she was only on the Rezmar board until 1991. However, the Times found her still listed as a board member in a 1994 biography on the company's web site.
Daley had appointed Nesbitt commissioner of the Housing Authority on July 9, 2003, and he served as vice chairperson of the Board since January 17, 2006.
Nezbitt is also vice president of the Pritzker Realty Group, where he procures new real estate investment opportunities, retail investments and developments for the Pritzker Group, according to the CHA web site. A quick trip to the Huffington Post site showed tens of thousands of dollars donated to Obama from people with the last name Pritzker in the Chicago area but many people are listed as homemaker or not employed or information requested, so its impossible to sort them out.
Nesbitt is treasurer for Obama's presidential campaign according to the Center for Public Integrity. Over his political career, Nesbitt has contributed more than $10,000 to Obama's campaigns.
Michelle Obama was hired as an assistant in Daley's office by Valerie Jarrett, Daley's deputy chief of staff in 1991. When Daley appointed Jarrett chairman of the Office of Planning and Development, Michelle became her assistant..
Jarrett is now CEO of the real estate development and management firm, called Habitat, which manages the housing program for the Chicago Housing Authority.
The Commission on Chicago landmarks "is responsible for recommending to the City Council that individual buildings, sites, objects, or entire districts be designated as Chicago Landmarks, thereby providing legal protection," according to the government web site.
Daley appointed Michelle to serve on the Chicago Landmark Commission. The current chairman of the Commission is Daley's former chief of staff, David Mosena.
Mosena was a member of Obama's US Senate Finance Committee in 2004, with other members that included Valerie Jarrett, Tony Rezko, Rita Rezko, and Allison Davis. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, cited by Novak in the Sun-Times on April 23, 2007. Jarrett serves as an advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.
The Illinois Finance Authority was established by Blagojevich in 2004. Its "role is to support the Governor of Illinois' economic development agenda," and "IFA approves about $3 billion in project financing each year," according to the its site.
Rezko business associate, Ali Ata, was appointed to head the Finance Authority. He is now under indictment in a separate criminal case in which Rezko is also charged. On June 30, 2003, Ata contributed $5,000 to Obama's US senate campaign.
On June 13, 2007, the Sun-Times reported that as a state senator, "Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens."
"I am writing in support of the New Kenwood LLC's proposal to build a ninety-seven unit apartment building at 48th and Cottage Grove for senior citizens,'' Obama wrote in October 28, 1998 letters to both city and state housing officials. "This project will provide much needed housing for Fourth Ward citizens.''
New Kenwood was set up as another "minority owned" company, where Davis owned 51% and Rezko 49%.
In the Times, Novak reported that the deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and Davis, while Obama was still working at the Davis law firm, for a bid on a project that was "four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district."
Although the law firm represented several companies owned by Davis and Rezko when Obama wrote the letters, the firm did not represent New Kenwood in the deal. According to the Sun-Times, Davis and Rezko instead hired a firm owned by Mayor Daley's brother Michael, "to help them get $3.1 million from bonds issued by the city of Chicago."
"In addition to the development fees, a separate Davis-owned company stood to make another $900,000 through federal tax credits," Novak reported in the June 13, 2007 Sun-Times.
The development opened in 2002 and was supposed to be managed by William Moorehead & Associates. William Moorehead was also a client of the Davis law firm and a business partner of Davis. In April 2007, Moorehead told the Times that his company was dropped from the deal before the apartments opened. The apartments are now managed by a company owned by Davis' son, Cullen Davis, according to Novak.
In the Times article, Novak also noted that Moorehead received a 4-year prison sentence "for stealing more than $1 million from ... public housing projects he managed for the Chicago Housing Authority and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, as well as from two developments he co-owned with Davis."
In a 2006, Moorehead pleaded guilty to fraud and other crimes and admitted stealing more than $600,000 from the Island Terrace and other federally subsidized projects.
During the period when Moorehead was stealing money, the Times reports, he lent Davis $100,000. Davis sent Moorehead a letter on June 15, 2000, and said the sale and refinancing of one of their housing projects had been delayed and wrote: "I need to borrow $100,000 from the Island Terrace resources."
As part of a plea deal, Moorehead is cooperating in an ongoing federal investigation.
David Brint now owns Brinshore Development. He told the Times that he quit Rezmar four years after the company got its first deal with city because Mahru did not find money for building repairs. Brint and his partners have taken over four failed Rezmar buildings -- "in one case paying the city $1 million to settle a $4 million loan made to Rezmar," according to the Times.
Gary Poter owned the construction company that rehabbed all of Rezmar's buildings. He was stabbed to death in May 2006, supposedly by a disgruntled employee, according to the Times "Rezmar who's who" list. Back on March 3, 2004, Poter donated $2,000 to Obama's US senate campaign and on July 19, 2004, he gave Obama another $1,000.
Its more than obvious that the political mafia of Illinois now has plans to install the new, "White House Office of Urban Policy," as a means of getting richer by funneling tax dollars through poor people and retirees on a national level via Obama.
The leaders of Democratic party need to tell him that he will not be the nominee and to drop out of the race. If they do not, the Republicans have enough truthful information lined up to drive Obama out before election day.
A month ago a friend of mine who knew I did not think Obama was qualified to be president, asked me what I would do if he was nominated. I replied that I would vote for him of course, what a dumb question. No more. After a month of research, I could no more support Barack Obama as the leader of this country than I could support another war profiteering Republican.
If he becomes the nominee, all the Democrats in America will be viewed by the rest of the world as either utterly stupid, or totally corrupt. Therefore, for the first time in my life, I have made a conscious decision to take a stand and not vote in a presidential election if the choice is Obama.
Barack Obama has a long history of working with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and governors of Illinois, including the current Governor Rod Blagojevich, in doling government funding for housing development in Chicago. His history is hardly a model of success, except for the hundred of millions in profits made by the chosen few slumlords.
Less than a year ago, in the April 26, 2007, Chicago Sun-Times, Fran Spielman reported that Chicago aldermen were accusing the Daley administration "of being asleep at the switch while low-income housing projects developed by the now-indicted Tony Rezko collapsed into disrepair."
"The spigot of loans, grants and tax credits should have been cut off when the first of 30 taxpayer-supported Rezko buildings in Chicago fell into disrepair, the aldermen said," according to the report.
Instead, Spielman said, a “Sun-Times investigation showed that the city, state and federal governments kept the gravy train rolling -- to the tune of $100 million between 1989 and 1998."
The lending continued, the Times noted, even as the city repeatedly sued Rezko's development company, Rezmar, "for such basics as no heat."
"They were going after people for being slum landlords in one department and loaning them money in another," said Alderman Freddrenna Lyle.
Obama now wants to bring this dog and pony show to Washington. I can see it now. His former boss, Allison Davis, at the Davis, Miner & Barnhill law firm, that served as a hub for Rezko's thriving slumlord business for a decade before Davis quit and became partners with Rezko, will be appointed to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Davis and his partners, which include his sons Jared and Cullen, have received more than $100 million in taxpayer subsidies to build and rehab apartments and homes over the past 10 years and have made at least $4 million in development fees, according to the Times.
"Davis has gotten deal after deal from the mayor, helping to make Davis one of the city's top developers," Tim Novak noted in the November 7, 2007 Sun-Times.
There's already a plan in place to guarantee that the Chicago model of "community development" is carried out in the White House. In his "Plan to Fight Poverty in America," Obama says, "we should create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund to develop affordable housing in mixed-income neighborhoods."
The Plan will create a "White House Office of Urban Policy" to develop a strategy for metropolitan America, and Obama will appoint a Director of Urban Policy who will report directly to him, as president, to "coordinate all federal urban programs," the Plan states.
Mayor Daley will probably be hired for this gig. The Plan explains that Obama will task his new Director "to work across federal agencies and with community and business leaders to identify and address the unique economic development barriers of every major metropolitan area in the country."
While climbing the political ladder, Obama held himself out to be a champion of rights for minority-owned businesses. According to an article on Black Enterprize.com, "it is Obama's strong record when it comes to supporting minority-owned businesses that has black business leaders working overtime to send the 42-year-old congressman to Washington."
However, an example of the Chicago version of a minority-owned business is DV Urban Realty Partners, where Allison Davis, who is an African American millionaire many times over, owns 51%, and Robert Vanecko, Mayor Daley's nephew, owns 49%.
On July 18, 2007, Obama discussed his plan to deal with urban poverty in a speech at the Town Hall Education Arts and Recreation Center in Washington and started out by tugging the heart strings by invoking the name of Bobby Kennedy and stated:
"It's been four decades since Bobby Kennedy crouched in a shack along the Mississippi Delta and looked into the wide, listless eyes of a hungry child. Again and again he tried to talk to this child, but each time his efforts were met with only a blank stare of desperation.
"And when Kennedy turned to the reporters traveling with him, with tears in his eyes he asked a single question about poverty in America: 'How can a country like this allow it?'"
"Forty years later," Obama said, "we're still asking that question."
First of all, "Barack Obama you are no Robert Kennedy," and we're still asking the question because the careers of politicians like Obama are funded by a political mafia which has turned helping the poor into a cottage industry.
During his speech, Obama himself spelled out why low-income housing developers get away with funneling tax dollars through poor people in cities like Chicago without drawing any scrutiny, when he stated:
"These Americans cannot hire lobbyists to roam the halls of Congress on their behalf, and they cannot write thousand-dollar campaign checks to make their voices heard. They suffer most from a politics that has been tipped in favor of those with the most money, and influence, and power."
In Obama's case, a whole gang of slumlords in Illinois made their "voices heard" by writing campaign checks to fund his rise to fame. But as long as the focus of the slumlord allegations remains solely on a crook named Rezko, the other members of the gang will not get the credit they deserve.
One fact is beyond dispute. Without the fundraising of his political Godfather, Rezko, Obama's rise to power would not have occurred. However, Rezko was not the pied piper of Hamlin who led Illinois politicians astray. It's the other way around. Without the cooperation of the corrupt government officials, Rezko would not have been able to fund their political campaigns.
In Illinois, favored politicians are joined at the hip when it comes to fundraising. For instance, from 1999 through 2006, an analysis by the Chicago Tribune shows Obama took in more than $1.5 million from some 700 people who also contributed to Mayor Daley during his political career.
A cursory review of Illinois campaign records shows Allison Davis and his family members giving close to $16,000 to Obama's presidential campaign. The Sun-Times reports that Davis has donated more than $400,000 to dozens of political campaigns, and the top beneficiaries include Mayor Daley, Blagojevich and Obama.
The truth about all the scams run by the political mafia operating in Illinois is only coming out now because of Rezko's corruption trial, and if the Democrats want to lose any chance of winning the White House, all they have to do is nominate Obama.
This case is only the first of what could be many to go to trial. Other criminal charges are pending against several people listed in the indictment, and civil lawsuits have been filed against many of the same people and are awaiting the outcome of the criminal cases.
If Obama had an ounce of respect for Democratic voters, he'd drop out of the race before the details of the corruption in Illinois spread to the rest of the country. If the leaders of the Democratic party had a lick of sense, they would inform Obama right now that under no circumstances will his name be on the ballot come fall.
Political junkies know the details of all the sordid scandals swirling around Obama in Chicago, but the average American voter does not have a clue.
The prosecution team is led by the US Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, of Scooter Libby fame; the same guy who put the last Illinois Governor behind bars and convicted a host of government officials from the Daley administrations who were involved in what prosecutors called "pervasive fraud" to rig city hiring for 12 years with persons who got out the vote for Mayor Daley, and the candidates he endorsed, as well as numerous crooks rounded up during the scandal involving Daley's Hired Truck program.
The list of names in the indictment includes about eight persons referred to as "Co-Schemers," and reads like a "who's who list" of major campaign donors to Obama, Blagojevich, Daley and other powerful Illinois politicians.
Blagojevich is referred to as "Public Official A," Obama is referred to as a "political candidate," and there is a list of "Individuals" from "Individual A" all the way up to "Individual HH."
By now, everybody following the case knows the names of the "Co-Schemers" and "Individuals", and the Republicans can use the court filings as a roadmap for their plan of attack on Obama. In fact, they are probably editing their talking points for cable news shows as we speak. They no doubt already have video clips in the can of every failed low-income housing project in Chicago connected to Obama to splash across the airwaves the minute he is nominated.
In addition, the Chicago Tribune has two ace reporters, Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, stationed at the courthouse, who provide a daily blog called "Gavel-to-Gavel" on the Tribune website which gives a blow-by-blow account of the live testimony in the trial every few hours.
The names of corrupt politicians and power brokers from both the Democratic and Republican parties are being dropped before the jury like flies. Many of the witnesses, including the main co-defendant, Chicago businessman Stuart Levine, have already pleaded guilty and are testifying under grants of immunity in hope of getting a lighter sentence, which means they have everything to gain by testifying about the other crooks.
Although the Tribune's Gavel-to-Gavel coverage is just as good as having a front-row seat in the courtroom, the Obama camp apparently feels the need to monitor the trial first-hand. On March 14, 2008, during an interview with the Sun-Times, a reporter said to Obama: "You have somebody in the courtroom to monitor the trial, right?"
"We may," he replied, "I think that may be true."
The case involves the corruption of two state regulatory boards. The investigation, dubbed "Operation Board Games," by the Feds, began in December 2003, based on information supplied by an informant. Its now obvious that Rezko was aware of the investigation as early as 2004, because during a January 16, 2007, court hearing his attorney, Joe Duffy, told US District Judge Amy St Eve that he was hired in 2004.
"And my guess is you hired Mr. Duffy to deal with the Feds?" the judge said to Rezko, and Rezko replied, "Yes, your Honor."
The first board controls the Teachers Pension System, which administers pensions and benefits for all Illinois teachers except for those in Chicago, and the Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves all proposals for construction projects that involve medical facilities in Illinois.
The Teacher's Pension fund has over $30 billion in assets. Investment firms that want to do business with the fund submit proposals, and the board votes on whether to approve the proposal. Some members of the board are elected by teachers in the state, others are appointed by the governor and others serve by virtue of their state office such as the school superintendent.
On Blagojevich took office, the Schemers were able to stack the TRS board with members who would vote whichever way they were told. Once they accomplished that feat, they demanded kickbacks from investment firms in exchange for the approval of their proposals.
Rezko's partner in the Rezmar development company, Daniel Mahru, is referred to as "Individual Z" in the indictment, and according to court filings, Rezko told Mahru that "$500 million" of TRS money was earmarked for their company. Mahru is reportedly cooperating with federal investigators.
In addition to lining their own pockets, the money gained through the scheme was funneled to the campaigns of Blagojevich and Obama. Prosecutors have identified two $10,000 payments that were made to Obama's US Senate campaign through straw donors Joseph Aramanda and Elie Maloof, which originated from a kickback paid by investment firm, Glencoe Capital, to secure approval for a $50 million deal.
Aramanda and Maloof also each gave Obama $1,000 for his failed run for Congress in 2000. Once Obama became a US Senator, Aramanda's son was granted a coveted intern position in Obama's Senate office in Washington during the summer of 2005, based on a request which the Obama's camp has admitted came from Rezko.
Levine was appointed to the TRS Board in 2000, by Republican Governor George Ryan and was reappointed in 2003 by Blagojevich. As part of the team led by Levine to rig the votes, Blagojevich appointed, attorney Anthony Abboud, to serve. He is "Individual Q" in the indictment. He has been donating money to Obama's political career since March 2000, with a total of more than $2,800.
Blagojevich also appointed, attorney Jack Carriglio, or "Individual R." On June 30, 2003, Carriglio donated $1,000 for Obama's US Senate campaign.
The TRS story has the makings of a great Hollywood movie with subplots upon subplots. Allison Davis, or "Individual BB," was a friend of Hollywood producer Tom Rosenberg, who produced the movie, "The Human Stain," with Anthony Hopkins and Davis in a small part. He also produced the Oscar winning, "Million Dollar Baby."
Rosenberg, or "Individual J," is a central figure in the case. His investment firm, Capri Capital Advisers, a real estate manager, had done about a billion dollars of business with the TRS in the past and wanted to do more. In 2004, the Schemers tried to coerce a bribe from Rosenberg, or in the alternative a $1.5 million contribution for Blagojevich, in exchange for approval of a $220 million deal.
According to the indictment, Davis admitted to Rosenberg that Rezko, and Blagojevich's top fund raiser, Christopher Kelly, or Co-Schemer B, had asked Davis who could raise funds for Blagojevich from the state pension system and he volunteered Rosenberg's name.
During his testimony on April 1, 2008, Levine explained that he was already mad at Rosenberg because he expected $500,000 for help he gave Rosenberg in getting the TRS board to approve a $100 million deal in 2001, but he never came through with the money.
The only benefit Levine received from the deal was that Rosenberg said Levine no longer had to pay him $50,000 a year for lobbying efforts, according to the monitoring by Gavel-to-Gavel.
However, all hell broke lose when Rosenberg refused pay the $1.5 million. During the trial, prosecutors played tapes of phone calls in which comical conversations were discussed between the bipartisan group of Co-Schemers and Individuals, as they were trying to figure out how to deal with Rosenberg and his threats.
The jury heard conversations between Republican power broker, William Cellini, or Co-Schemer A, and Levine, in which they said Rosenberg was threatening to "stand at State and Madison," and make public the attempt to extort money for Blagojevich's campaign and that he would "take them all down," and even threatened to go to the Feds.
They claimed Rosenberg said he considered Rezko and Christopher Kelly the two most likely members of Blagojevich's inner circle to end up in prison someday, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Kelly has been charged in a separate case with hiding $1.3 million from the IRS and using money from his business to pay gambling debts with Chicago bookies and Las Vegas casinos.
Levine testified that Rezko wanted things to settle down and quoted Rezko saying, "Mr. Rosenberg was a dangerous individual, and nobody wanted to be put in a dangerous situation."
Levine said Rezko told him that TRS should grant Capri the $220 million. "But, in fact, that should be the last business that Mr. Rosenberg does with the State of Illinois," Levine recalled Rezko telling him, according to Gavel-to-Gavel. Levine testified that Rezko said Blagojevich had been briefed on the plan and agreed with it.
During his testimony, Levine also told the jury that Rezko had plans for Blagojevich to run for President. "He said that he had raised a great deal of money for Gov. Blagojevich and that he had great hopes and expectations that Gov. Blagojevich would run for president," Levine told the jury.
"And although he knew it was a long shot, he was working toward that end," Levine said.
He also told the jury about an October 29, 2003, trip in a plane he chartered to carry Blagojevich and others to fundraisers in New York, during which Levine thanked Blagojevich for reappointing him to the Planning board and said the governor told him, "Never discuss any state board with me, discuss them with either Tony Rezko or Chris Kelly."
The TRS part of the story has many subplots. For instance, in 2005, the Feds issued a subpoena to the TRS for records pertaining to a $150 million deal approved for the Carlyle Group, in which Robert Kjellander, or Individual K, described in the August 11, 2005 Sun-Times as the "national Republican Party treasurer," and "a Springfield lobbyist with close ties to the White House," was to be paid a $4.5 million fee.
The most famous investor in the Carlyle Group is the family of Osama bin Laden, and its most famous advisor is the first President George Bush. On October 26, 2001, the New York Times reported that the "Saudi family of Osama bin Laden is severing its financial ties with the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm known for its connections to influential Washington political figures."
"It came largely as a result of public controversy about the family's stake in a Carlyle fund that invests in buyouts of military and aerospace companies," a Carlyle executive told the Times.
After the September 11 attacks, the Times noted, "the investment was criticized amid speculation that the family might profit from increased military spending from America's war on terrorism."
Kjellander reportedly headed Bush's reelection campaign in three states and in December 2003, he was able to obtain an invitation from the Bush administration for Levine, Rezko, and Cellini, along with their wives, to attend a Christmas Party at the White House.
Apparently Kjellander is still in good graces with the Republicans because he is "helping plan this September's Republican National Convention in Minneapolis," according to John Kass in the March 7, 2008 Chicago Tribune.
The subpoena issued to the TRS in 2005, also included a request for records involving a $10 million investment approved for Hopewell Ventures in 2003, whose principals included David Wilhelm, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who is now a super delegate who openly supports Obama. Wilhelm was a main player in getting members approved to serve on the Health Facilities Planning Board.
The Board is made up of nine members and approval of a project requires a majority of five votes. At the center of this scheme was a proposal by Mercy Health System to gain approval to build a new hospital in Crystal Lake. On April 21, 2004, the board voted to approve the project, even though state analysts said the hospital was not needed.
Levine was also appointed to the Planning Board by a Republican Governor. However, he established himself as a bipartisan crook early in the trial. On March 10, 2008, he told the jury that even before he got involved with the Blagojevich administration, he used to funnel campaign contributions to Democratic candidates through straw donors at the request of former Chicago Alderman Edward Vrdolyak, who has also been indicted on federal fraud and bribery charges in a related case.
Levine's term on the Board was set to expire in 2004, but the Schemers made sure he remained on the panel. On March 10, 2008, Rezko's lawyer questioned Susan Lichtenstein, former general counsel to Blagojevich, about a series of email exchanges she had related to the appointments of members to the Board in 2003.
One of the emails was between Lichtenstein and the office of Wilhelm, who ran Blagojevich's 2002 campaign, which suggested several appointees, including Levine.
"With the e-mails," Gavel-to-Gavel reports, "Rezko's lawyers appear to be pushing the point that Rezko wasn't alone in backing Levine and that Levine's appointment had a broad array of support."
While all this was going on, as a state senator, Obama was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. As such, his name also appeared in the email exchanges as a member of a team working on legislation to keep the board from expiring under a sunset provision of Illinois law.
The email exchanges said, Wilhelm had “worked closely” over six months with state legislators to extend the life of the board and listed Democrat and Republican leaders in the Illinois Senate and House, including Obama.
The exchange with the names of four candidates for the board stated that “our attached recommendations reflect that involvement” with the political leaders.
In the end, the changes made by the lawmakers in 2003 dropped the number of members on the Board from 15 to 9, making it much easier to stack the panel, and by the summer of 2003, the Schemers controlled a 5-bloc vote.
At the time, Thomas Beck was the chairman of panel, and Levine was the vice-chairman. Beck testified, under a grant of immunity, and told the jury that he took a $1,000 donation for Blagojevich when he met with Rezko to seek reappointment.
The persons chosen to guarantee the votes were 3 doctors: Imad Almanaseer, Michel Malek and Fortunee Massuda.
Massuda, or "Individual Y," gave Obama $2,000 on January 26, 2004. Malek is "Individual FF," and he donated $10,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign on June 30, 2003, and another $500 in September 2003.
Almanaseer, or "Individual EE," contributed $1,000 to Obama on March 12, 2004, and ponied up another $2,000 on May 24, 2004.
This part of the scheme also opens up several subplots. The person responsible for working out the details for the kickback on the Mercy proposal was Jacob Kiferbaum.
Kiferbaum was the builder hired by Mercy to construct the new hospital. Levine told the jury about a long history of taking bribes from Kiferbaum, who would then pad his bills to hide the payments. He said the money would be passed through middlemen, such as John Glennon, a prominent Republican insider, who had served on a pension board with Levine.
The new hospital was never built after details about the crimes became known. Kiferbaum has pleaded guilty in the case and is cooperating with the Feds.
When referring to the fact that Obama's name shows up in the email exchanges as reviewing the recommendations to appoint Levine and the others to the Planning Board, the media is always careful to mention that Obama is not accused of anything.
However, on March 14, 2008, during an interview with the Tribune, Obama was finally asked directly: "Did you have discussions with him [Rezko] about either recommendations that you sought for people or recommendations that he was making?"
"I did not have any formal discussions with Tony," Obama said, "beyond one individual, and that was Dr. Eric Whitaker, who ultimately became the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health and who had been a longtime friend of mine, who I had known since he was getting his master's at Harvard and I was at the law school there."
"He had expressed an interest in that post," Obama informed the Tribune.
"I think he had applied separately," Obama said, "but I don't recall whether I called Tony or he called me."
"And I simply said, 'I think this guy is outstanding and is certainly somebody who is worthy of an interview,'" he added.
"And was it your understanding that Tony was going to effectuate that?" the Tribune asked.
"No," Obama said. "What I knew was, and I don't think this has been disputed, that he was one of a number of people within the Blagojevich circle who were, you know, helping to screen or interview potential candidates for administration posts."
The job Obama recommended for his friend paid about $150,000 a year. However, Eric Whitaker is now an executive vice-president of the University of Chicago Medical Center, according to the March 9, 2008, Sun-Times. That would be the same employer that pays Michelle Obama a salary of close to $350,000 as a vice president.
But Obama's using the lure of the pension funds to raise campaign money goes way back. In 1999, he "was instrumental in the formation of a coalition of black investment firm owners and legislators in Illinois to create an initiative that would award black-owned firms with the management of some of the state's retirement funds," according to a 2004 article on Black Enterprise.com.
"He's out there fighting for us," said John Rogers, chairman and CEO of Chicago-based Ariel Capital Management in the article. Rogers donated $9,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign.
"He was a catalyst to pull [everyone] together to create the initiative to have these organizations let minority firms do business with state funds," said Lee Holland, managing partner and Chief Investment Officer of Holland Capital. Lee Holland, his wife and two of his partners donated $35,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign. In the October 1, 2007, New York Times, Christopher Drew and Raymond Hernandez reported that:
"Members of the group, the Alliance of Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs, say Mr. Obama checked into their problems and helped start a drive that enabled minority investment executives to win millions of dollars in business from the state's giant pension funds."
However, the Times pointed out that Obama's political career had benefited many times over from his ties to the group. "Several of the businessmen or their wives would help clear the debts from his Congressional race," the Times wrote, "and six of the group's members are now among the top fund-raisers for his presidential campaign, according to campaign finance records."
All totaled, the Times said, employees at more than 30 companies listed on the group's website and their relatives donated more than $300,000 to help Obama win his US Senate seat in 2004 and "set fund-raising records early in the 2008 presidential race."
In fact, when Illinois State Senator Emil Jones, Jr became the State Senate president in 2003, he assigned Obama to a committee looking into the pension questions "to help raise his political profile," according the Times.
During this period, the Times says, campaign finance records show executives from Ariel Capital, Loop Capital, Holland Capital and Capri Capital, "sharply increased their donations" to Obama's State Senate campaign fund.
"And once he began his campaign for the United States Senate," the Times wrote, "they quickly became a fund-raising core that has carried over into the presidential race."
Obama quit the State Senate committee in late 2003 as his race for the US Senate heated up, "and just as the panel began a series of hearings that produced the most substantial changes," the Times reports.
The changes generated millions dollars in fees for some of the firms. For instance, Loop saw its fees from one pension fund rise to $2.4 million in 2006, from $5,700 in 2001, and Holland and Ariel both got several hundred million from the pension funds to invest.
John Rogers and two other people at Ariel each bundled at least $50,000 in donations for Obama's presidential campaign, according to the Times.
An October 3, 2005 article in the Sun-Times, by Chris Fusco and Dave McKinney, reported that Ariel and its top executives also contributed $117,500 to Blagojevich's campaign.
Although the current criminal case focuses on two boards, the testimony of Jill Hayden, the former head of Blagojevich's Office of Boards and Commissions, established that the same process was used to fill some 1,500 positions, on 300 boards and commissions, that control a wide variety of regulatory decisions, which would include other pension funds.
Blagojevich appointed Davis to serve on a separate pension board, the Illinois State Board of Investment, which oversees funds for state employees, judges and legislators, and "also has been under federal investigation," according to the November 7, 2007 Sun-Times
In the September 23, 2007, Sun-Times, in reference to the "minority owned" DV Urban, of Davis and Robert Vanecko, Tim Novak reported that a "nephew of Mayor Daley stands to make millions of dollars from city-connected pension funds" in "winning business from pension funds for city workers, cops, teachers and CTA employees".
All total, the pension funds gave DV Urban $68 million. The first investor was the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, but according to Novak's report, the board members did not learn that DV Urban was owned by the Mayor's nephew until 6 months after they voted to approve the investment.
As of September 23, 2007, Davis and Vanecko had received $1 million in management fees and they are "guaranteed at least $3 million in management fees and could make as much as $8.4 million before the pension deal ends on Dec. 31, 2014," Novak reports.
In addition, Davis and Vanecko will share in any profits from the real estate deals and can earn a 3% fee on the property they develop.
Obama says he met Rezko, when he got a call right out of the blue from David Brint, after he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, wanting to know if he would be interested in being a developer for Rezko's real estate company, Rezmar.
Because they read that he was interested in community development work, Obama says, Rezko and his two partners, Mahru and Brint, met with him to discuss the job. "I said no, but I remained friendly with all three of them," Obama said in the Chicago Tribune on November 1, 2006.
"All three of them remained great contributors of mine," he added.
And so they did. According to the latest tally given during interviews with the Tribune and Sun-Times on March 14, 2008, the amount attributed to Rezko went from a claim of $50,000 or $60,000 a year ago, to Rezko raising roughly $250,000.
In fact, Obama told the Tribune that Rezko "might have raised $50,000 to $75,000" for one campaign alone in his failed run for Congress in 2000.
The Rezmar connection is a gift that keeps on giving. In February 2007, David Brint gave Obama $4,600, and his wife, Elizabeth gave contributed $2,300. Brint also hosted a fundraiser for Obama in June 2007. Elizabeth donated a couple thousand in 2002 and $2,000 more in 2003 as well.
On March 17, 2000, Mahru gave Obama $1,000, listing himself as president of Rezmar. On March 4, 2004, he donated a whopping $5,000. Mahru also tossed $1,000 to Mayor Daley in 2001 and gave him another $1,500 in 2003.
But then Rezko and Mahru had plenty of money to throw around. By 1998, Rezko had a reported net worth of $34 million and Mahru was worth $14.6 million, according to the "Rezmar who's who list," published in the April 24, 2007 Sun-Times.
After turning down the surprise job offer from Rezko, Obama expects voters to believe that he just happened to get hired at the small 12-attorney Davis law firm, which just happened to represent Rezmar in development deals. And then a couple years later, Rezko's companies just happened to appear on the very first contributions made to the "Friends of Obama" committee to launch his political career as a state senator.
On March 14, when asked by the Sun-Times, whether the subject of politics was mentioned at his first meeting with Rezko, Obama stated: "Quite frankly, I don't recall. I think it was talking about the possibility of me working for him."
About the same time that Rezko began funding Obama's campaign for the Illinois senate, Rezmar began developing low-income apartments with three non-profit groups, which were also represented by the Davis law firm, including the Chicago Urban League, the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp, and the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization.
Bishop Arthur Brazier, described as "a powerful ally of the mayor" by the Sun-Times, founded the Woodlawn Preservation Corp and the Fund for Community Redevelopment.
Davis was the treasurer for Woodlawn when the group went into business with Rezmar and he also served on the board that ran the Fund for Community Redevelopment.
By the time Rezmar started working with the non-profits, two of its earlier projects were having major problems, including a building where the tenants were without heat for five weeks between December 1996 and February 1997. The city had to sue to get the heat turned back on and in fact Chicago sued Rezmar for failing to heat buildings at least a dozen times, according to the Sun-Times.
Obama got a $1,000 campaign donation from Rezmar on January 14, 1997, while those tenets were without heat, Novak reports. Records show that Obama also received a $1,000 contribution from Resko Concessions, a day earlier on January 13, 1997.
Rezmar rehabbed 15 buildings between 1995 and 1998 in partnership with the nonprofits.. Each project involved public and private financing including loans from the city or state, federal low-income-housing tax credits and bank loans. The way it was set up, Rezko and Mahru always came out ahead because Rezmar was paid part of the development fees when a deal closed and the remainder when tenants moved in.
The projects were supposed to provide housing for low-income tenents for at least 25 years. "But the first deal Rezmar struck with the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp. collapsed in just six and a half years, when the state sued for foreclosure," according to a report by Novak in the April 23, 2007 Sun-Times.
Of the buildings managed by Rezko and Mahru, 17 ended up in foreclosure, six buildings are currently boarded up, hundreds of the apartments are vacant and in need of major repairs, and taxpayers are left stuck with millions in unpaid loans, Novak reports.
An "Operation Board Games" investigation should be conducted on the slumlord business in Illinois over the past 15 years. The Chicago Sun-Times reporters, and especially Tim Novak, have already done an excellent job in connecting all the dots.
Daley became Mayor in 1989 and Rezmar got its first city loan of $629,000 the same year, even though Rezko and Mahru had no construction experience.
Rezmar stopped making the $2,982 payments three years later and missed 16 payments before the city changed the terms so that Rezmar would only have to pay $465 a month, according to the Sun-Times report by Novak.
Over the years Davis has been appointed to serve on the Illinois Capital Development Board, which oversees state construction projects, and the Chicago Public Building Commission. Daily appointed Davis to the Chicago Plan Commission in 1991, where he stayed until January 2006.
The Plan Commission must approve, disapprove or defer any proposal by a public body or agency "to acquire, dispose, or change any real property within the territorial limits of the city" on the basis of whether or not the referral complies with the city's long range planning goals and objectives, according to its web site.
After Rezko got Davis appointed to the pension fund Board, Davis helped Rezmar in two major developments as a member of the Plan Commission, even though the two men were business partners. The first vote involved a housing development along the Chicago River at Irving Park Road and was cast a month after Davis won a seat on the Board.
The second was cast a year later in March 2004, for the approval of Rezmar's proposal for the 62 acre South Loop project. This deal collapsed shortly before Rezko was indicted in October 2006, according to Novak.
Daley made Thomas McNulty, the attorney who acquired the buildings for Rezmar, president of the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, a charity run by the city that doles out tax dollars to landlords to subsidize rent payments for the poor. Rezmar received more than $2.7 million from this charity fund, according to the "Rezmar who's-who list" in the April 24, 2007 Sun-Times.
Mahru was appointed to the Illinois Affordable Housing Advisory Commission in 1993, which helps decide which projects get state funds, by Governor Jim Edgar.
Obama began serving on the board of Woods Fund, a Chicago charity foundation, in 1993, the same year he was hired by Davis' law firm. In 2000, Davis went to the foundation to help fund his plans to build low income housing. Obama voted to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners, a $17 million partnership that Davis still operates, according to a report by Novak in the November 29, 2007 Sun-Times.
Davis used some of the money to build a 72-unit apartment building for senior citizens, a $10 million project built with a $5.7 million city loan, which earned Davis nearly $700,000 in development fees, Novak says city records show.
Davis' son Cullen is paid to manage the building, which opened three years ago with a ceremony featuring Mayor Daley.
Kelly King Dibble was the vice president for business development at Rezmar and she became the executive director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority once Blagojevich became Governor. She is now an attorney with, The Northern Trust Company, the same company that financed Obama's mansion.
Velma Butler, an investor in Rezko's 62 acre Loop project, also serves on the Illinois Housing Authority. She donated $1,000 to Obama's US Senate campaign in 2003.
On October 1, 2006, Daley appointed Martin Nesbitt chairperson of the Chicago Housing Authority. The CHA was created for "the purposes of engaging in the development, acquisition, leasing, operation, and administration of a Low Rent Housing Program and other federally assisted programs," according to the agency’s 2005 annual financial report.
Nesbitt succeeded Sharon Gist Gilliam, according to the CHA web site. Gilliam is a former board member of Rezmar. She told the Sun-Times that she was only on the Rezmar board until 1991. However, the Times found her still listed as a board member in a 1994 biography on the company's web site.
Daley had appointed Nesbitt commissioner of the Housing Authority on July 9, 2003, and he served as vice chairperson of the Board since January 17, 2006.
Nezbitt is also vice president of the Pritzker Realty Group, where he procures new real estate investment opportunities, retail investments and developments for the Pritzker Group, according to the CHA web site. A quick trip to the Huffington Post site showed tens of thousands of dollars donated to Obama from people with the last name Pritzker in the Chicago area but many people are listed as homemaker or not employed or information requested, so its impossible to sort them out.
Nesbitt is treasurer for Obama's presidential campaign according to the Center for Public Integrity. Over his political career, Nesbitt has contributed more than $10,000 to Obama's campaigns.
Michelle Obama was hired as an assistant in Daley's office by Valerie Jarrett, Daley's deputy chief of staff in 1991. When Daley appointed Jarrett chairman of the Office of Planning and Development, Michelle became her assistant..
Jarrett is now CEO of the real estate development and management firm, called Habitat, which manages the housing program for the Chicago Housing Authority.
The Commission on Chicago landmarks "is responsible for recommending to the City Council that individual buildings, sites, objects, or entire districts be designated as Chicago Landmarks, thereby providing legal protection," according to the government web site.
Daley appointed Michelle to serve on the Chicago Landmark Commission. The current chairman of the Commission is Daley's former chief of staff, David Mosena.
Mosena was a member of Obama's US Senate Finance Committee in 2004, with other members that included Valerie Jarrett, Tony Rezko, Rita Rezko, and Allison Davis. The committee raised more than $14 million, according to Federal Election Commission records, cited by Novak in the Sun-Times on April 23, 2007. Jarrett serves as an advisor to Obama’s presidential campaign.
The Illinois Finance Authority was established by Blagojevich in 2004. Its "role is to support the Governor of Illinois' economic development agenda," and "IFA approves about $3 billion in project financing each year," according to the its site.
Rezko business associate, Ali Ata, was appointed to head the Finance Authority. He is now under indictment in a separate criminal case in which Rezko is also charged. On June 30, 2003, Ata contributed $5,000 to Obama's US senate campaign.
On June 13, 2007, the Sun-Times reported that as a state senator, "Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens."
"I am writing in support of the New Kenwood LLC's proposal to build a ninety-seven unit apartment building at 48th and Cottage Grove for senior citizens,'' Obama wrote in October 28, 1998 letters to both city and state housing officials. "This project will provide much needed housing for Fourth Ward citizens.''
New Kenwood was set up as another "minority owned" company, where Davis owned 51% and Rezko 49%.
In the Times, Novak reported that the deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and Davis, while Obama was still working at the Davis law firm, for a bid on a project that was "four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district."
Although the law firm represented several companies owned by Davis and Rezko when Obama wrote the letters, the firm did not represent New Kenwood in the deal. According to the Sun-Times, Davis and Rezko instead hired a firm owned by Mayor Daley's brother Michael, "to help them get $3.1 million from bonds issued by the city of Chicago."
"In addition to the development fees, a separate Davis-owned company stood to make another $900,000 through federal tax credits," Novak reported in the June 13, 2007 Sun-Times.
The development opened in 2002 and was supposed to be managed by William Moorehead & Associates. William Moorehead was also a client of the Davis law firm and a business partner of Davis. In April 2007, Moorehead told the Times that his company was dropped from the deal before the apartments opened. The apartments are now managed by a company owned by Davis' son, Cullen Davis, according to Novak.
In the Times article, Novak also noted that Moorehead received a 4-year prison sentence "for stealing more than $1 million from ... public housing projects he managed for the Chicago Housing Authority and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, as well as from two developments he co-owned with Davis."
In a 2006, Moorehead pleaded guilty to fraud and other crimes and admitted stealing more than $600,000 from the Island Terrace and other federally subsidized projects.
During the period when Moorehead was stealing money, the Times reports, he lent Davis $100,000. Davis sent Moorehead a letter on June 15, 2000, and said the sale and refinancing of one of their housing projects had been delayed and wrote: "I need to borrow $100,000 from the Island Terrace resources."
As part of a plea deal, Moorehead is cooperating in an ongoing federal investigation.
David Brint now owns Brinshore Development. He told the Times that he quit Rezmar four years after the company got its first deal with city because Mahru did not find money for building repairs. Brint and his partners have taken over four failed Rezmar buildings -- "in one case paying the city $1 million to settle a $4 million loan made to Rezmar," according to the Times.
Gary Poter owned the construction company that rehabbed all of Rezmar's buildings. He was stabbed to death in May 2006, supposedly by a disgruntled employee, according to the Times "Rezmar who's who" list. Back on March 3, 2004, Poter donated $2,000 to Obama's US senate campaign and on July 19, 2004, he gave Obama another $1,000.
Its more than obvious that the political mafia of Illinois now has plans to install the new, "White House Office of Urban Policy," as a means of getting richer by funneling tax dollars through poor people and retirees on a national level via Obama.
The leaders of Democratic party need to tell him that he will not be the nominee and to drop out of the race. If they do not, the Republicans have enough truthful information lined up to drive Obama out before election day.
A month ago a friend of mine who knew I did not think Obama was qualified to be president, asked me what I would do if he was nominated. I replied that I would vote for him of course, what a dumb question. No more. After a month of research, I could no more support Barack Obama as the leader of this country than I could support another war profiteering Republican.
If he becomes the nominee, all the Democrats in America will be viewed by the rest of the world as either utterly stupid, or totally corrupt. Therefore, for the first time in my life, I have made a conscious decision to take a stand and not vote in a presidential election if the choice is Obama.
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