Obama attends party in honor of Auchi says governments star witness.

I learned not to comment online, either negatively or positively, about anything related to politics or politicians. I don't like all the mean-sprited comments thrown at me in return.

However, if I were going to comment on this article, I would say something like, once many people have made up their minds about a politician, it seems they don't change in spite of additional evidence they see or hear about. So maybe this is useless.

Are you responsible for everyone who has attended the same party that you did at some point in your life?

Most wouldnt go to a party in HONOR of this sort of person

I was in the same graduating class with someone who later murdered a woman.
I will never run for office so I guess it doesn't matter.

Sounds like you're stretching a bit far for it, here's what others had to say:


"The biggest problem for me is that the testimony comes from Stuart Levine, whose testimony the Government has purchased with promises of leniency for his own misdeeds.

It was previously reported that details of fundraisers Rezko held at his Williammette Mansion would come up at trial. The fundraiser Rezko held for Obama was in 2003. Did the then-drug addled Levine get his dates and parties mixed up? Wouldn't surprise me.

I continue to believe and want to stress again there is no suggestion here that Obama did anything wrong or illegal in his dealings with Rezko. The issue with respect to Obama is one of judgment."

When you're running for president, anything's fair game. The party in question is being testified about in a criminal trial. If Obama was there, it is a fact, that came out in the trial. "Politics" dictates that some opponents will use this against him. Without further examination, the public won't know the whole story. It's really in Obama's own interest to come clean about this now, before the general election. He seems to be using a "limited, moderate hang-out" strategy, regarding his potential "political promlem" associations.

It may be as innocuous as some make it out to be.This trial isn't about Obama, so it won't provide much more insight into why he was there, and why he doesn't remember it. I'm sure some journalists will stay on this story, and look deeper into Obama's Chicago past.

According to The London Times:


The London Times has discovered state documents in Illinois
recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to
Mr Obama's fundraiser in May 2005.

Fintrade's directors include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr Auchi's
wife. Mr Auchi's spokespeople declined to respond to a question about
whether he was linked to this business.

But according to this Middle Eastern business site that had profiled
Auchi's General Mediterranean Holding Company, Nadhmi Auchi himself is
directly associated with Fintrade Services of Panama! That means that
there's a direct money trail between Barack Obama and Nadhmi Auchi!

Buying Obama - The Auchi Connection

Who is Auchi
Tracing the trail of Iraqi born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi indicates Rezko's deals may include a money trail leading back to Saddam Hussein oil for food program.

A 2004 Pentagon report described Auchi, "who, behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein's principal international financial manipulator and bag man."

Auchi prospered in Saddam's regime collecting "commissions" on sale of weapons and other goods to Iraq in the 1980s and 1990s.

A recent Pentagon report accuses Auchi of "unlawful activities working closely with Iraqi intelligence operatives to ... arrange for significant theft from the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program to smuggle weapons and dual-use technology into Iraq," and to "organize an elaborate scheme to take over and control the post-war cellular phone system in Iraq."
At Saddam's insistence a scheme orchestrated by Auchi appropriated billions of dollars from America through America's Oil for Food program into Auchi's bank account. These transactions passed through Banque Nationale de (BNP) from its 1995 inception until 2001 through Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings Company (GMHC) which was the largest private shareholder in Paris.
Auchi's General Mediterranean Holdings has connections in Iraq which lead right back to Tony Rezko.
Auchi's company helped finance a 250 megawatt power plant in the Kurdish town of Chamchamal, Iraq, teaming up with Rezko and Iraq's former Minister of Electricity, Aiham Alsamarrae. In December, 2006 Alsamarrae was accused of graft and is being charged in a $2 billion Iraqi reconstruction corruption case. Alsamarrae is a Chicago resident with dual US-Iraqi citizenship -an embarrassing connection for the war critic Obama. Alsamarrae is now living in his Chicago mansion.
Writing in Human Events, March 3, 2008, John Batchelor reports on an Alsammarae-Obama-Rezko connection:

"...in April 2005, one month before Mr. Alsammarae left his post, his Ministry of Electricity signed a contract for $50 million with Companion Security to provide training to Iraqis to guard electrical plants by flying them to Illinois for classes.

"Companion Security was headed by a former Chicago policeman with a troubled history, Daniel T. Frawley, in partnership with Mr. Rezko and in association with Daniel Mahru, the lawyer for the original contract and Mr. Rezko's former business partner. In April 2006, Mr. Frawley entered negotiations with Governor Rod Blagojevich's staff to lease a military facility in Illinois to be a training camp. In August 2006, Mr. Frawley started negotiations with Mr. Obama's U.S. Senate staff to complete the contract....

"The timeline of Companion discussions in 2006 is important to note: April 2006 Frawley speaks to governor's office; August 2006 Frawley speaks to senator's office; October 2006 indictment of Rezko revealed; October 2006 Rezko arrested upon return from Syria; October 2006 Alsammarae convicted in Baghdad and makes his first escape attempt; December 2006 Alsammarae escapes from Baghdad. ...

"(In 2004) Mr. Auchi traveled by private aircraft to Midway Airport in Chicago and then to a fete at the Four Season Hotel, where he met with his business partner in Chicago real estate, Mr. Rezko, as well as with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Also present that night, according to a fresh report by James Bone and Dominic Kennedy of the London Times, was State Senator Barack Obama, who had recently won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat...."

The Obama Connection
Recently the London Times reported that Auchi had been a business partner of Rezko since 2003 and between April 2005 and 2007 loaned Rezko at least $18 million.
On February 1 the London Times reports uncovering, "state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to (an) Obama fundraiser in May 2005. Fintrade's directors include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr. Auchi's wife."

"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.

These Funds from Auchi's loan helped finance a complex series of transactions between Rezko and Democratic Presidential candidate Illinois Senator Barack Obama involving the 2005 purchase of Obama's Chicago mansion and Rezko's purchase of an adjoining landlocked parcel.
Rezko claims he paid "full market price" and Obama apparently received a "discount" of several hundred thousand dollars for his parcel. Rezko then improved his parcel to benefit Obama.

Instead of handing cash to Obama, Rezko handed Obama a preferential price for property. This is the same form of "honest graft" and preferential treatment that sent former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner to jail over 30 years ago, see United States v. Isaacs, 493 F.2d 1124 (7th Cir. 1974).

The Chicago Sun-Times recently reported that Mr. Rezko, around the same general period he was wheeling with Obama, also provided a preferential price for a property purchase by U. S. Representative Luis Gutierrez.

Instead of transferring cash to buy influence, Rezko was engaging in structured property transactions and preferential treatment of public officials to confer significant financial benefits on them, far above the legal limits of any legitimate political contribution permitted by federal law.
Rezko was a key early-money fund raiser in Obama's state Senate campaigns. and Rezko's relationship with Barack Obama goes back to at least 1990, when Obama's law firm did work relating to a Rezko housing development.
Rezko as a major mob figure is not known for civic-mindedness or desire for good government.

At a March 3 news conference in San Antonio, Texas, Chicago-based reporters peppered Obama with some of the questions the national news corps has avoided for over a year. Obama claims he had already answered the questions in the Chicago media. He said: "These requests, I think, could just go on forever. At some point, what we need to try to do is respond to what's pertinent."

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote:

"Reporters, however, had a different idea of what was pertinent, and the questions about Rezko, NAFTA and other unpleasant subjects continued to come. An aide called out 'last question,' and Obama made his move for the exit -- only for reporters to shout after him in protest. 'C'mon, guys,' he pleaded. 'I just answered, like, eight questions.'"

Thanks, Dave! After reading this, my worst suspicions come to the front. This is an area that needs "vetting," so to speak. What's the real deal here?