No change in this Obama story

Here's Thomas Lifson at American Thinker ------

The UK Times reports that Barack Obama's involvement with Chicago slum landlord Tony Rezko, currently under indictment, may involve money originating from a British-Iraqi Middle East wheeler-dealer, Nadhmi Auchi, a convicted criminal.

Rezko, an Obama fundraiser, helped facilitate Obama's purchase of a $1.65 million mansion in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood for $300,000 below the asking price. The owner wished to sell both the house and an adjoining lot. Mrs. Rezko paid the full asking price of $625,000 on the same day that the Obamas purchased their luxury home. At a substantial discount.

The seller denies that there was any connection between the two transactions. Later, a small portion of the land was sold to the Obamas so that they could expand their garden.

Senator Obama calls this arrangement a "mistake."

Now it develops that Mr. and Mrs. Rezko apparently lacked the money to make the purchase of the plot of land. [From the UK Times]

In a sworn statement a year later, Mrs Rezko said she got by on a salary of $37,000 and had $35,000 assets. Mr Rezko told a court he had "no income, negative cash flow, no liquid assets, no unencumbered assets [and] is significantly in arrears on many of his obligations."

Just weeks before the Hyde Park transactions, Auchi loaned $3.5 million to Rezko.[From the UK Times]

A company related to Mr Auchi, who has a conviction for corruption in France, registered the loan to Mr Obama's bagman Antoin "Tony" Rezko on May 23 2005. Mr Auchi says the loan, through the Panamanian company Fintrade Services SA, was for $3.5 million.

There is much yet to be learned about the web of transactions involved, but it now appears that money originating from a convicted Middle Eastern wheeler-dealer found its way to indicted Chicago wheeler-dealer Tony Rezko, and then weeks later provided the means for a nearly simultaneous land transaction that enabled the Obamas to buy their home for substantially below asking price.

It certainly doesn't look like change we can believe in, when it comes to Chicago politics.

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Folks, there's no change in this Obama story. It's all about very large amounts of money.

Lifson's post deals with important matters we need to follow. Be sure to go to his post to which he's just added an update with new material.

It will be interesting to see how Obama explains this new information.

And just as interesting will be to see how the Anything for Obama media flacks react to it.

Hat tip: Mike Williams