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Tale in national spotlight, thanks to Clinton January 24, 2008 All of a sudden, seems as if everybody's talking about Barack Obama and Tony Rezko. Even Jay Leno. Rezko already was a big story in Chicago, accused of influence-peddling in the Blagojevich administration and set to face trial Feb. 25. But Monday, he became national news -- and an issue in the presidential race. That's when Hillary Clinton blasted Obama for having represented "your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner-city Chicago." Having a hard time keeping track of the facts? Here are eight things to know: 1....

Once Chris Kelly was charged in 2007, Rod Blagojevich took a more direct and active role in fund-raising, Monk said. Blagojevich picked up the phone and called people himself. He was more active. Then the brakes were going to be put on him. The Illinois Legislature in 2008 passed a far-reaching ethics bill that would keep him from soliciting donations from people who did business with the state. After Jan. 1, 2009, there was a fairly large group of donors who were no longer able to give him money Blagojevich thought: "It was overreaching and unfair because it focused only...

CHICAGO – The onetime chief of staff for Rod Blagojevich is testifying that he and others in the former Illinois governor's inner circle — including Blagojevich — talked about how they could make money from state actions. Alonzo Monk says he, fundraisers Tony Rezko and Christopher Kelly and the governor referred to themselves as "one, two, three, four." And he says the first person to talk to him about making money from state actions was Kelly, who was found dead last year in what police say was a suicide. Monk has pleaded guilty in the case and is testifying in...

In their opening statement, prosecutors said Rod Blagojevich governed Illinois under a three-word mantra: “What about me?” — a reference to Blagojevich allegedly using state government to enrich himself. But in his opening statement, Blagojevich defense attorney Sam Adam Jr. told jurors to heed three other words as the ex-governor’s criminal trial unfolds: “Follow the money.” Adam — at times pacing the courtroom and shouting at the top of his lungs — emphatically told jurors that Blagojevich went “broke” in his later days as governor. It’s one of many signs of Blagojevich’s innocence, he said. “He’s broke. He’s broke. You...

Politico is reporting that the upcoming corruption trial of Blago is going to “lay bare the underbelly of Chicago politics.” Obama has done a pretty good job of educating the American people about Chicago style politics already. "President Barack Obama, White House aides Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) all have at least some interest in the outcome, according to documents produced by prosecutors, defense lawyers and the White House counsel. Blagojevich has been charged with engaging in state-level kickback schemes, but Washington is much more focused on allegations...

We've had the Summer of Love and the Summer of the Shark. Now, are you ready for the Summer of Corruption? On Thursday, jury selection begins in the federal trial of disgraced former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. The timing couldn't be worse for Blago's old Chicago pals in the White House. Just as Team Obama tries to bury one job-trading scandal, another one resurfaces. It's a useful reminder that Washington didn't turn Obama into a business-as-usual politician. He was born and bred among the slimiest in their class. At the center of the Blago trial is the convergence...

An interesting thing about Barack Obama is that he chose, on two occasions, to live in Chicago -- even though he didn't grow up there, had no family ties there, never went to school there. It was a curious choice. Chicago has a civic culture all its own and one that is particularly insular. Family ties and personal connections are hugely important. Professionals who have lived and worked there for a quarter-century are brusquely reminded, "You're not from here." Nonetheless Obama moved upward in the Chicago civic firmament with apparent ease. The community organizer joined the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church...

Rich Miller at the Capitol Fax blog discovered that a redacted court document in the Blagojevich trial wasn’t so redacted. This document includes all sorts of bad news for the President. First up, Rezko: Blagojevich’s lawyers allege that Tony Rezko admitted to violating the law by personally contributing “a large sum of cash” to a public official’s campaign, which the Blagojevich people say is Obama. The lawyers claim that Obama may not have been telling the truth when he said Rezko never relayed a request from a lobbyist to hold a fundraiser for Obama in exchange for favorable legislative action...

Blagojevich corruption trial may touch ObamaToday at 08:52 | Reuters CHICAGO, June 2 (Reuters) - Even Rod Blagojevich's lawyer finds him a bit strange, which may provide the key to the former Illinois governor's strategy at his upcoming corruption trial -- he was all talk, but no action. **SNIP** Another possible wild card in Blagojevich's long-awaited trial that begins on Thursday is whether it will entangle Obama and his aides in Illinois' hurly-burly political theater. The trial, which is expected to last up to four months, may expose discrepancies in how members of Obama's future administration characterized its contacts with...

Obama Patrick Fitzgerald meeting?, Did Obama meet with Patrick Fitzgerald past 24 hoursJust this morning, May 29, 2010,  Citizen Wells reported the following:“Is this part of the setup?“These questions beg for an answer and we deserve one. Why wasn’t Rod Blagojevich indicted soon after the Rezko trial ended in June 2008? He was wreaking havoc on the citizens of Illinois. Why was the arrest of Blagojevich delayed until December 2008, after the 2008 elections? Why was prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald given this assignment by Barack Obama? August 5, 2009 “I was preparing a new article, a more detailed version of an...

*snip* I have a background in using the internet and researching, and I was so concerned within the first several weeks, it affected my sleep. And I’m talking about the whole big picture about Obama, his background, Chicago corruption, and right on down the line. And then very quickly, when I started asking questions on the internet, I got attacked for it. And I’m talking about something very benign such as “Where was Obama in November of 1999?” and I was amazed. Then I started following the Larry Sinclair story, and I quickly realized, “Wait a minute. This is not...

While President Obama assures Americans that his White House is the “people’s house,” he covertly gives political advisors taxpayer-funded personal drivers traditionally reserved for cabinet members and national security officials. Obama and Jarrett, who was his “Olympic Czar,” are so tight that he refers to her as a “sibling.” Before joining the administration Jarrett was involved in a series of real estate scandals, including several housing projects operated by convicted felon and Obama fundraiser/friend Antoin "Tony" Rezko. Besides getting a personal military driver to chauffer her around town and to and from work, Jarrett also gets Secret Service protection, which...

(CN) - The 7th Circuit on Tuesday rejected defense lawyers' efforts to push back former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's corruption trial, which is scheduled to start on June 3. Michael E. Ettinger, attorney for Blagojevich's brother and co-defendant Robert Blagojevich, vowed to appeal. "We are going to the Supreme Court," he told The Associated Press. Defense attorneys asked the Chicago-based appeals court to postpone the case pending the Supreme Court's ruling in cases challenging the federal honest services fraud law, the basis for many of the charges against the former governor. The 7th Circuit said the argument "might give us pause"...

E-mails and other records of Dr. Eric Whitaker -- one of President Obama's best friends -- have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury... The investigation involves "faith-based initiatives" and health-awareness campaigns funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health when Whitaker ran the agency for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich... Obama has said he recommended Whitaker for that job, which Whitaker landed in April 2003. The president's friend resigned in October 2007 to join Obama's wife, Michelle, as an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center. On Friday, Whitaker defended his work as the state's former top health official,...

The full transcript…without the redactions…shows these things…quite injurious to Obama: That the president may have lied about conversations with convicted fraudster the incarcerated Tony Rezko, his former friend, fund-raiser and neighbor that Rezko never passed along a lobbyist’s offer to then state Senator Obama about placing a gambling casino in suburban Rosemont which Rezko could have made a killing on. The proffer was for Rezko to hold a fundraiser for Obama in return for Obama’s support of a favorable official action on gaming legislation. Obama has denied ever receiving such an offer. Says the previously redacted portion: The defense has...

National press gets a taste of crafty Obama May 2, 2010 BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist It's confusing, this relationship of the press to political power. Cozy, yet hostile at the same time. On the one hand, you have this weekend's equivalent of an extravagant three-day wedding celebration otherwise known as the White House Correspondents Association dinner. This "hottest ticket of the year" is Washington's annual fan dance, as members of the national press corps dress up, strapless and in black tie, to rub elbows with all those politicos they claim to throw sharp elbows at the rest of the...

[snip] On the downside, you have the recent piece on Politico.com, "Why Reporters Are Down On Obama." It's about how the Washington press corps has discovered to its dismay that Team Obama preaches transparency infinitely better than it practices it. It's something we in the Chicago press corps have known for a wearying long time and have tried to explain to our national brothers and sisters during the 2008 presidential campaign. But many of them were too besotted to listen. [snip] Our inquiry then was about Obama's fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, who now resides in a federal lockup. We wanted to...

CHICAGO (AP) — Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's lawyers are asking the judge in his corruption case to bar testimony from convicted fixer Tony Rezko.... The lawyers said any witness convicted of a felony and still awaiting sentence would feel too much pressure to say whatever the government wanted to hear.

Two political contributors to Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Illinois, appear in the government’s evidentiary documents against former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. One of the two men, Myron Cherry, recently contributed $2,300 to Giannoulias’s Senate campaign. Cherry, an attorney, gave to Giannoulias in August. He has also donated $68,000 to a bevy of Democratic candidates during this cycle, including Sens. Al Franken, Minn. and Harry Reid, Nev., and Senate candidates Paul Hodes, N.H., and Jack Conway, Ky. The other man, Michael Winter, was the office-mate of convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko. In 2006, Illinois’ Capitol Fax blog reported...

Hard on the heels of that shocking Pew Research Center survey finding that four out of five Americans don't trust government comes a blitz of new revelations about the Obama administration that amount to a full-fledged credibility crisis. The latest disclosures are especially damaging because they concern President Obama's possible misrepresentation of his relationships with former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and convicted felon Tony Rezko, his administration's misleading statements about Obamacare costs, and questions about improper manipulation of government-owned General Motors and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Blagojevich revelations were no less serious for being accidental. Blagojevich's defense attorneys...