Fred Martinez's Monitor

2001 Obama: The Buying of a Illinois Politician

-That is called buying a politician. Don't we worry when a politician becomes so reliant on a private individual for their very existence? Doesn't it make them more susceptible to threats or intimidation? Isn't there an appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest? Well Obama must have thought so because he failed to report essentially the sole source of his outside income on an Illinois state ethics report

-Obama's tax returns show that he made no money from his law practice in 2000, the year of his unsuccessful run for a congressional seat. But that changed in 2001, when Obama reported $98,158 income for providing legal services. Of that, $80,000 was from Blackwell's company.

-In 2002, the state senator reported $34,491 from legal services and speeches. Of that, $32,000 came from the EKI legal assignment, which ended in April 2002 by mutual agreement, as Obama ceased the practice of law and looked ahead to the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate.

http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/patriotroom/2008/apr/27/obama_got_8_000_per_month_in_return_for_political_favors

Obama Got $8,000 Per Month in Return for Political Favors
By patriotroom Posted in Culture of Corruption | Liberals | Obamafiles — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from the diaries by Neil. So it turns out he's wussy and corrupted enough to be taking payoffs directly and via his wife.

Here is today's daily teeth-gnashing article for the Democrats. Looks like Obama had a buddy who paid him really well when he needed it back in 2001. State Senator Obama made sure his buddy got paid back, and then some, with taxpayer money. From the L.A. Times.

Read on...

After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments.

Obama's staff said the senator advocated only for the first year's grant -- which ended up being $20,000, not $50,000. The day after Obama wrote his letter urging the awarding of the state funds, Obama's U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell.

Not a bad investment for Blackwell. Paid Obama a total of $112,000.00 and got $320,000.00 in state grants. Not quite as good as say, a killing in the cattle futures market, but not too shabby either.

This $8,000.00 per month retainer is not only a large chunk of cash, it looks a lot like a sweetheart deal where Obama gets to keep the money regardless of whether he actually does any work or not. If EKI doesn't call, Obama does no work and keeps all the cash.

And this line about "the senator advocated only for the first year's grant," is another weak defense of his questionable friendships. Would anybody have plucked, from all the companies seeking state grant money, Blackwell's Ping-Pong company and earmarked $320,000.00 for them if not for Obama? Please.

When you get into the meat of the article we see that Obama had no money at all and Blackwell's cash accounted for virtually all of his outside income for 2001 and 2002.

In his book "The Audacity of Hope," Obama tells how his finances had deteriorated to such a point that his credit card was initially rejected when he tried to rent a car at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles. He said he had originally planned to dedicate that summer "to catching up on work at the law practice that I'd left unattended during the campaign (a neglect that had left me more or less broke)."

Six months later Blackwell hired Obama to serve as general counsel for his tech company, EKI, which had been launched a few years earlier. [snip]

Obama's tax returns show that he made no money from his law practice in 2000, the year of his unsuccessful run for a congressional seat. But that changed in 2001, when Obama reported $98,158 income for providing legal services. Of that, $80,000 was from Blackwell's company.

In 2002, the state senator reported $34,491 from legal services and speeches. Of that, $32,000 came from the EKI legal assignment, which ended in April 2002 by mutual agreement, as Obama ceased the practice of law and looked ahead to the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate.

That is called buying a politician. Don't we worry when a politician becomes so reliant on a private individual for their very existence? Doesn't it make them more susceptible to threats or intimidation? Isn't there an appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest? Well Obama must have thought so because he failed to report essentially the sole source of his outside income on an Illinois state ethics report.

Illinois ethics disclosure forms are designed to reveal possible financial conflicts by lawmakers. On disclosure forms for 2001 and 2002, Obama did not specify that EKI provided him with the bulk of the private-sector compensation he received. As was his custom, he attached a multi-page list of all the law firm's clients, which included EKI among hundreds. Illinois law does not require more specific disclosure.

If he only had one source of income, then the only relevant information on the form is the name of the source. Maybe his "custom" wasn't all that forthcoming in the first place.

Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room

posted by Fred Martinez @ 8:27 AM