It's the LA Mayor ,is a Hillary supporter,
who received a donation from Rezko of something between $5000 and $10,000. Doesn't sound like a BFD.

I've heard Rezko wanted to hire O when he was graduating from Harvard Law. O decided not to but in the process he and Michelle became friends with Rezko and his wife.

Sure, I wish Obama didn't have this relationship but I'm not going to assume that it is an incorrect one until someone produces if not evidence, at least an allegation, to that effect.
Clearly the Chicago newspapers haven't done that yet or we'd have learned it. Which says something.

May not be a great issue for McCain given his
membership in the Keating 5.

Rezko? Please
Take a look at do we want 4 more years of corruption?
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=076fd56f-4aca-4683-a9d1-3c55d748946e
The Chicago Press has researched this more than ANY political story in Chicago politics. They have done ALL the work and the one thing that comes out of their research and investigative work is: Senator Obama is not implicated in any of the Rezko Corruption Charges.

So this is a recycled story for the benefit of Bill Clinton and his wife because they were whinning about the non-coverage of this very covered story.

Senator Obama said he made a mistake, he has apologized for this numerous times.

Senator Obama wanted the house. He couldn't afford the lot. His friend, Rezcko, the real estate developer purchased the lot and sold him a small piece of it.

What's the problem again?

P.S. People buy houses for below market value all of the time. It's called negotiating a good deal.

Once he was made aware of Rezko's dirty dealings, NONE OF WHICH OBAMA WAS INVOLVED WITH, he gave the money to charity.

Unethical cheats see corruption everywhere:
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=076fd56f-4aca-4683-a9d1-3c55d748946e

According to the article I read in the L.A. Times, Rezko paid $300,000 for the lot and did indeed sell it to Obama, at less than fair market value. And for those who think that "less than fair market value" means nothing more than a good deal, I would say that sometimes, with politicians, a deal that smacks of "good deal" is nothing more than a disguised insider bad deal. But as Will Rogers said, "All I know is what I read in the newspapers." Or perhaps it was Bebe Rebozo who said that?

Ah, the Keating Five! Some voters are too young to remember that caper. Charles Keating, a Big Man in Phoenix, owned a savings and loan that allegedly was part of the so-called "Daisy Chain" of S&Ls of which Michael Milken of Drexel, Burnham was in the center (see "The Predator's Ball" by WSJ reporter Connie Bruck). The members of the chain would trade junk bonds back and forth with each other, marking up a gain on each transaction to make their financial statements look good. Keating went further: he had his employees sell "certificates of deposit" to the account holders of his bank, most of whom were elderly, ill, ignorant and living on pensions, wirhout disclosing that unlike federal deposits, they weren't insured...Keating also sent appraisers out into the desert to overvalue vacant land which he then obtained by writing up a phony loan, booking phantom interest income on each loan to make his books look good and fool the feds. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board (popularly known as FLUBB), was stymied in trying to enforce its powers by a bloc of 5 senators of which John McCain (and Alan Cranston of California, who, as I recall, resigned from the Senate rather than undergo an Ethics Committee investigation), were members. OK. In either the 2000 or 2004 campaign, McCain was asked about the Keating Five, and replied, "I did a dumb thing." As Howard Duff used to say at the end of the Sam Spade radio program, "Period, end of report." McCain's lack of grasp of economic facts and realities rivals even George Bush's, whose "faith based" economics has driven us into a severe and growing deficit. Disastrous as it was, Bush at least had some business experience in oil. Finally, to wrap it up, Keating got off scott free. Judge Lance Ito (remember Ito and OJ's Dream Team?) erroneously instructed the Keating criminal jury that the prosecution did not have to prove actual involvement by Keating in the fraud committed by his employees...so the court of appeals reversed. A bit of history for our time.

Clearly the Chicago newspapers haven't done that yet or we'd have learned it. Which says something.

Google much?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200801230008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-rezko-clinton-080122,0,5430503.story

In 2005 a property came on the market listed at about $2.6 million. It consisted of two legal lots maintained as a single unit and described as an 'estate' though totally only perhaps 15,000 sf. Two couples on the same day purchased the lots separately. One couple bought the house and one lot for $1.6 million, $300,000 under asking price. The other couple bought the other lot at the full price of $625,000 even though it had no physical access from the street. Subsequently the second couple sold 1/6th of that lot to the first couple reducing its size from 7500sf to 6150sf and since it was a corner lot reducing the potential building footprint to about 2800sf. The first couple paid a little over $100,000 for that 1/6th of the lot, over the appraised value but in line with the recent actual purchase price. After the purchase the second couple made no effort to establish access or to show use, instead they allowed the first couple to maintain the landscaping with access gained from a gate from the first couple's lot. As a matter of law 'open' and 'notorious' use of property without objection from the owner of record can end up with ownership of that property transferring to the property user by the doctrine of adverse possession, unless there is an explicit lease agreement the first couple will over a period of time gain title to what was in origin and still in appearance being a fenced in side yard. The second couple financed the purchase with the aid of a $500,000 mortgage and after the sale of the 1/6th of the lot were left without any real cash investment in the property.

Without adding names if you put this theoretical scenario before a real estate broker or a mortgage broker and told them that the two couples had a multi-year personal and professional relationship the only logical conclusion would be mortgage fraud, the second couple colluding to secure the first couple a $2.6 million dollar mini-estate for a total of $1.71 million ($1.6 purchase, $125k for the 1/6th).

I don't have anything against Obama but I do have a (inactive) real estate license and if as an agent I willingly participated in this transaction I would be liable to lose that license and possibly pay a big fine. This kind of deal may be business as usual in the City of Chicago but anywhere else this would raise some serious eyebrows and potentially the scrutiny of the State Board of Licensing. This deal not only looks bad, on any objective examination of the facts as we know them is bad. We start with a single use property under one party control, we end up with a property still with a single use under one party physical control. Everything about this shouts 'sham transaction' by the Rezkos on behalf of the Obamas and equates to an eventual $500,000 gift from the former to the latter once adverse possession kicks in (ten years in the State of Washington, Illinois time periods may vary).

As my (not actual) Uncle Jack Webb would say: "Just the facts maam".

Bruce Webb,

Since you are so well versed at teh Google, you could have easily found that adverse possession in Illinois takes 20 YEARS.

Salon's Edward McClelland's February 1, 2008 article is the best place to go for an outline of the basic relationship between Obama and Rezko. Rezko was an early and continuing patron of Obama and Obama stuck with him despite early and continuing public signs that Rezko was corrupt -- including getting concessions for phony minority set-aside businesses.

For an even more alarming take go to Rezkowatch which details Rezko's involvement with corrupt actors in Iraq.

If Tony Rezko lives or had lived across the street from Obama’s new home, isn’t Obama’s response to the Suntimes peculiar?

Suntimes from Nov 5, 2006 :

Q: Did you approach Rezko or his wife about the property, or did they approach you?
A: To the best of my recollection, I told him about the property, and he developed an interest, knowing both the location and, as I recall, the developer who had previously purchased it.

We learn from the current post that:
The sale was brokered by real estate agent Donna Schwan, who'd known Rezko when he lived in the neighborhood. Asked who approached her about the house, Schwan told Salon, "I honestly don't remember. Tony Rezko lived across the street, so he'd been interested in the lot."

Obama received two favors – the sale of the strip of property, albeit at what Rita Rezko paid for it, which would likely not have been available if someone had purchased the lot either for their own home or to develop it and the fact that the lot was held without development which protected the quality of life at Obama’s home compared to if the lot had been developed into condominiums.

If Rezko was living in the area at the time, the purchase of the lot protected his own standard of living but, if not, it was a pure favor to Obama.

We also so know from the Michail Sneed article that “
Rezko began his political life as a fund-raiser for Mayor Harold Washington when it looked as if Washington didn't have a chance. Ditto for the then-long-shot U.S. Senate campaign of Barack Obama. Sneed is told Rezko is hurt by Obama's lack of support since reports surfaced the feds were investigating him.October 12, 2006.”

Blagovich maintains that he appointed Rezko affiliated people because he thought he was getting good faith recommendations. Rezko may have hoped that Obama would do the same. Only a few of such appointees need be corrupt in order to be useful to Rezko.

In short, Obama does not have to be corrupt in order to be useful to Rezko -- slightly naive works just as well for Rezko.

The last "honest" president we had was probably "Tippecanoe," William Henry Harrison. Although a bad guy before his election, he caught cold at his inauguration in 1841 and died 31 days later. Nobody could lay a finger on him.

You people keep flogging this issue, when your presumed candidate is one of the most ethically compromised politicans in Washington.

According to hate radio and Republican't [be honest] talking points, yes. But since when do purported Democrats repeat their lies?

Oh, right: when the ehtically-challenged lie in effort to advvance their candidate's political fortunes.

For those of you who support Barack Obama, PLEASE go to

www:freedomsenemies.com/_more/obama.htm

These are his own words from his book, friends and family. He was right when he said that no politician is clean. He is just as dirty if not more so than the rest. Some new change. He is not an outsider he's in the Senate. Why did he go along with supporting the war once he had the power to vote against it? What a hypocrite. I feel sorry for those who were taken in by him.

He has taken the great words of JFK and MLK and used them for his own. What a fraud. Yes the U.S. desperately wants change. They want change from George W Bush and it doesn't matter who it is. Obama wants you to believe in the words that he says but it's not what he believes in his heart.

THEY ALL TOOK MONEY FROM REZKO.
when Hillary confronted with a picture of Cilnton-Rezko stood between them, undated though-she said that she did not know anything about picture and had taken lots of pictures with lots of people but she did not have 17years of relationship with that man.

I have been one of those politician fund-raising, you get on the line and when is your turn,you get to take a picture with whoever that politician might be. you get to do this in exchange of some of your money, easily 2500$ and up, of course. on the way out you get to hear someone say to you, "senator" or "congressman" really thanks for your support and will remember you. the whole thing has nothing to do with anything but money.

she took some money from this guy, I bet you. that is why she has shut up about this guy.

HI there I have been trying to find my father his name is antoin rezko and is from syria. i have never met him before and this story about someone with the same name keeps arising. Can someone please let me know more about this man. Im now wondering if this is my father. So many people are angry with him i understand but I am from england and cant find out anything more than this court story. Any replys would be much appreciated.I may even have the wrong person. But would like to know either way. thankyou. christina rezko.