Points Confirmed
Burton said a campaign adviser discussed the sale with Wondisford by phone and followed up with an e-mail to Wondisford repeating his points. Wondisford responded: “I confirm that the three points below are accurate,” according to the e-mail, provided to Bloomberg News and authenticated through records shown by the adviser.
The e-mail says that the sellers “did not offer or give the Obamas a `discount’ on the house price on the basis of or in relation to the price offered and accepted on the lot.” It also says that “in the course of the negotiation over the sales price,” Obama and his wife, Michelle, “made several offers until the one accepted at $1.65 million, and that this was the best offer you received on the house.”
Wondisford has declined to talk directly about the matter.
The Obamas submitted three bids: $1.3 million on Jan. 15, 2005; $1.5 million on Jan. 21; and $1.65 million on Jan. 23, according to a copy of the sale contract shown to Bloomberg News. Obama received more than $1.2 million in book royalties and a book advance in 2005, the year he was sworn in to the U.S. Senate, his financial disclosure statement shows.
The e-mail between Wondisford and the campaign adviser also says that the sellers had “stipulated that the closing dates for the two properties were to be the same.” In January 2006, Rita Rezko sold the Obamas one-sixth of the lot, for $104,500, to expand their yard. She later sold the rest of the land.
I’ve never printed Wondisford’s name up until now because of a presumption of privacy for the guy, but he is an endocrinologist at Johns Hopkins. He moved there after being on staff at the University of Chicago’s Medical School faculty.
Also, if you look at the records in the Recorder of Deed’s web site, you will see he and his wife paid $1.65 million when they bought the house with the lot being around $400,000.
Obviously, there must be some sort of backstory here if even the property sellers have now confirmed the facts that have already been made public.
Based on the known facts, it’s obvious there was a plot to illegally dump raw sewage on that 6′ strip.
There may have even been an attempt to shave kittens so they would get cold in winter.
I know this because I say so… and Dan Curry or John Ruberry might have written about too.
(/snark)
Darn, Rob, you beat me to the comment.
Are you sure there isn’t some one-time member of the Johns Hopkins advisory board who might have lived in the same town as Jack Abramoff who could refute this whole thing? Was there collusion between Johns Hopkins and University of Chicago to force this doctor to move and sell his house?
I’m sure dancurry will soon be here with more of his self-defined “tough questions.” We still don’t know what everyone ate for breakfast that day.
And thanks, Larry, for properly sitting on the name of the seller for so long. It is sad that someone not in politics has to forgo his family’s personal privacy to quell the rumor-mongers.
I’m indebted to Larry for his breakdown of the Obama/Rezko non-scandal, which he went to great lengths to lay out piece by piece.
But I still don’t understand what exactly revelations like this are supposed to defend against.
Rezko was leading an ongoing criminal conspiracy to fix state contracts for himself and his friends, using his influence with state legislators. Thereby, Rezko was a scumbag.
Senator Obama thought enough of this scumbag to call him up personally and ask him to tour a property with him and give him personal real estate advice.
Tony Rezko’s wife bought the neighboring property on the same day Senator Obama bought his home, presumably as part of an ad hoc busiiness partnership? Or why? (Again: legitimate question).
I comprehend Larry’s various points–namely, that there is no proof that Obama either a) saved money or b) provided a favor to Rezko, but–he clearly was working closely enough with this massively corrupt slimeball to be his go-to real estate guy.
Isn’t THAT the issue? That he had a long-time working relationship, including in a fundraising capacity, with a scumbag like Rezko?
Which gets little more than a shrug from me, because he’s a politician in Chicago. Find me one that doesn’t have a working relationship with a scumbag. But this “revelation” from the property salesman doesn’t seem to answer that larger point, does it?
It just seems like every time there is a question raised (All the money from Exelon, for example) the response comes quickly: there was a legislative maneuver involved; letters in support of projects are routine; they asked him to vote present. Would there be enough smoke to call it a fire if it was Congressman Rush involved in these exact same situations?
I’m not asking to be cute; I’m serious. I don’t see how arguing the specifics (“You can’t prove this relationship ever benefitted Rezko, he kept raising all that money because he was ‘trying to get his hooks’ in Obama”) helps defeat the greater point, that Senator Obama lacked the judgement to see what Rezko and Rezmar were up to for all those years as their relationship became close enough that Rezko was willing to take a day to go down to Hyde Park and look at the Senator’s new home.
Again; I think the whole thing is massively overblown, and a non-issue (insofar as the actual facts are concerned; perceptions are a different matter and opining on them is useless). But I just don’t see how the details provided here refute the larger point.
You’d be better of saying, “Yeah, he was boys with this dirtbag, big whoop.”
Chicago Life,
If it was an “ad hoc business alliance” why did only the Rezkos benefit from the sale of the property?
That’d be a pretty crappy “ad hoc business alliance” for the Obamas since they didn’t make any money anywhere in any deal (cigar-smoke-filled backroom-deal or not).
…As to your other points, just about every politician of any stature in Illinois (and even on up to Pres. Bush) benefited from “a long-time working relationship, including in a fundraising capacity, with a scumbag like Rezko”…
I’m not saying that taking in money from a “scumbag” is a good idea, but clearly Rezko lavished donations on boatloads of people, Dem and GOP alike, at almost all levels of elected office, from State legislature to the Gov’s Mansion to the White House.
…Oh, wait. Isn’t that the same as saying “You’d be better of saying, “Yeah, he was boys with this dirtbag, big whoop.””???
Even still, Obama sent all that money off to charity — even money from people who bundled under Rezko. Did Bush do the same for the hundreds of thousands he took in thanks to Rezko’s part in the 2003 BC04 funder in Chicago?
—
Bird, We do know what they had for breakfast. Horsemeat. Everyone knows that. It’s obvious because only academic elitists would eat the meat from such stately animals, for breakfast no less.
—
Greuben has a great diary up at DKos getting to the bottom of all this. (Hint: Read the tags on the diary, esp. the one spelled “s-n-a-r-k”.)
All fair points. Except, of course, not all those people called up Tony Rezko to take a walking tour of their property.
You don’t need to defend the Senator from me–I’ve never thought this Rezko thing was a big deal, for one because it’s so damn complicated that you just know by instinct that even if there was impropriety, it wasn’t something so damning (or systematic, or chronic) that a person shouldn’t be president.
I’m not saying it was an “ad-hoc business alliance” either; but they bought the property in concert, didn’t they? I don’t know what you call it, but you’re right, that if one party didn’t benefit then it wasn’t nefarious, just weird. I mean, the guy was a scumbag, you shouldn’t be buying property alongside him. Even the Senator said it was “boneheaded”, didn’t he?
The instinct in your post though is to absolve absolutely everything–and that surely isn’t right. There isn’t congruity between Bush’s Rezko connection and Senator Obama’s, is there? One represented the district Rezko was slumlording in and considered him his go-to real estate guy. So you can admit that is a facile analogy. At the very least we can say that the Senator willfully worked with this scumbag when he didn’t need to and shouldn’t have.
Again, I don’t think this is a persuasive argument against the Senator, and wouldn’t except it as such. But to gloss over it as not indicating anything at all I think is a bit much.
===You’d be better of saying, “Yeah, he was boys with this dirtbag, big whoop.”
I admit, most of what I’ve written deals with the specifics, but I have made exactly that point, but to get to that point, you have to go through the specifics.
There are two things that probably don’t seem like I say them often–and that’s true because I’ve been knocking down the larger stories trying to tie Obama into the trial. We all know the scumbag who is the target there–the Governor.
1) It was incredibly stupid by that point to do anything with Rezko.
2) He needs to more fully account for the bundling Rezko did for him.
That said, most politicians at this level have these kind of relationships and it’s why we need to change the finance system. Even relatively decent people appear corrupt because they have to raise money. The same thing happened to the Clintons and in that case it morphed into lying about a blowjob.
It’s a structural problem and other than Paul Simon, it happens to everyone.
Amen, brother.
Chicago Life notes, “But to gloss over it as not indicating anything at all I think is a bit much.”
…Then what does it indicate?
You bring up points that you then say have little importance and you yourself sweep them away?
Obama knows Rezko. So do a lot of other politicians. If they were running for prez I’m sure those “connections” could be painted in a similar light, no matter how legitimate, legal and proper they are.
So again, what does it indicate?
That Rezko tries to ingratiate himself with pols because he has a big ego? E gad.
That Rezko is a real estate investor and developer? Horrors.
I don’t “absolute absolutely everything” on this issue because there’s nothing to be absolved from. It was a completely legitimate real estate deal as has been explained ad infinitum and verified by the well-researched legal documentation, the two purchasing parties (the Obamas and Mrs. Rezko), the sellers’ real estate agent (herself a Hillary Clinton supporter) and now the sellers themselves.
What is there to “absolve”? What is there to “indicate”?
There’s simply no there there in the first place.
That should actually be…
I don’t “absolve absolutely everything” on this issue…
😉
Your insistence that there was absolutely nothing untoward in this relationship is what hampers you. The evidence suggests that while there was no political corruption here (thus why I say its not a big deal) there were serious lapses in judgment. Why was he calling Tony Rezko to come tour his property with him after the guy had been indicted?
There is something to be absolved of: bad judgment in his professional relationships. You’re right: this is something most politicians can be accused of. Most politicians are not running for President right now. Most politicians didn’t engage in a personal property deal that involved the spouse of an indicted political fixer.
As Larry said, there’s no evidence for Senator Obama’s involvement with Rezko’s criminal conspiracy, so that is that. But there is evidence that Senator Obama demonstrated poor judgment in maintaining his relationship with this slimeball well after he should have known better and cut the guy off completely. That is not a good thing. Saying “they all do it” doesn’t make that untrue.
I would add that Obama himself has called his continuing this relationship “boneheaded”. I’d say that’s fair. He can apparently admit his fallibility. You may want to consider following his lead.
chicagolife:
Not to be cute either, but the reason some of us keep dragging up the facts is that every time facts have gotten in the way, another rumor-monger (NOT referring to you) posts more sleaze hoping it would stick.
Last week after all the two-year-old answers to the “tough questions” were reprinted there were several posts implying something sinister about the “same day” closing on the two parcels.
Even your phrasing, “…presumably as part of an ad hoc busiiness partnership? Or why? (Again: legitimate question),” would have been a legitimiate question had not all the parties involved clearly stated that it was the SELLER’s demand to have his two parcels closed on the same day. Nothing to suggest any ad hoc or other deal between two different sellers. As happens with many people who have job transfers to another city, the SELLER said “I’ll sell the two parcels to the two highest bidders only if they agree to close on the same day.”
Yes this is a tiny non-issue in the big scheme of things, but the fact that people still want to “presume” some “legitimate” alternative, even after the seller had to produce the sales contract with seller stipulations shows how far some people will go to find dirt when none is there.
But the real issue here is that Senator Obama’s opponent threw out some very generalized and undocumented Rezko mud on national TV, with the clear but faint hope of having it somehow stick to Senator Obama.
Then the whining appeared on this blog that Senator Obama had never answered “tough questions” until all the asked-and-answered questions were eliminated one-by-one.
Until it got down to “I just can’t believe it. There must have been collusion to close two separate deals on one day.” SHEESH.
I once signed nine separate out-of-town real estate deeds in the same bank office on the same day. It seemed to make more sense to buyers, sellers, attorneys and bankers than making nine separate trips to another state.
But I’m sure dancurry will not be satisfied until he can examine the originals of the seller’s real estate contracts. After all, they could have been Doctored.
Yes, as Senator Obama forthrightly stated, it was “boneheaded” to have any dealings with Rezko, even as innocent as this one was. He admitted that long ago and moved on from it until it was thrown in his face on TV.
And thank you, Rob. I will sleep easy knowing they all ate horsemeat that day.
This Rezko BS will amount to no more than the Clinton’s White Water affair and much less. And certainly less that their cattle futures trading.
There was some discussion after Clinton was elected, during his impeachment, in fact, of the opportunity the public had to assess his suitability for office by gathering facts before the election, and how lax that had been.
It only cost America $40 million for Starr.
The lengths that the public goes to in order to exonerate a candidate may be presumably linked to the degree of popularity that candidate is able to engender.
But is that a fair way to administer justice in America, by selective exoneration depending upon popularity?
Whitewater was an affair before Clinton became President but it did not stop him from becoming one. Rezko alliances may not stop Obama if that is the choice of the American people, but will America be in another Whitewater afterward?
So because there may be a partisan witch hunt we shouldn’t elect Obama?
Wow, that’s some great mental gymnastics. Whitewater was a big fat nothing and that the public had its time and money wasted on it isn’t the Clinton’s fault. It’s the fault of the press and the partisan investigators that continued investigating and found nothing until something completely unrelated came up.