Free Republic

Even as Barack Obama gave his soaring speech Thursday night, his campaign was playing hardball with its critics. Team Obama has launched an offensive against WGN, the Chicago Tribune's radio station, for interviewing Stanley Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is a conservative writer who this week forced the University of Illinois to finally open its records on Sen. Obama's association with William Ayers, the unrepentant 1970s Weather Underground terrorist. An Obama campaign email to supporters called Mr. Kurtz a "slimy character assassin" whose "divisive, destructive ranting" should be confronted. WGN producer Zack Christenson says the outpouring of negative calls and emails is...

"Why aren’t the American media investigating the role of British billionaire businessman Nadhmi Auchi in supplying loans to Barack Obama fundraiser Tony Rezko? Some point to media bias, but there is another factor. Working for Auchi, who was born in Iraq, attorneys from London law firm Carter-Ruck have for several months been flooding American and British newspapers and websites with letters demanding removal of material they deem “defamatory” to their client."

Until Carter-Ruck and Partners and England’s stifling libel laws got to work, the few American journalists not caught up in Obama-mania were turning to the archives of the British press to answer an intriguing question: who is Nadhmi Auchi? Facts elsewhere were sparse. According to Forbes, Auchi was the 279th richest man in the world and a “onetime go-between for major oil companies and state-owned oil fields”. The only criticism its rich list noted was “for hosting a lavish 1,000-person wedding for his son on the same day that the anti-poverty Live 8 concert kicked off in adjacent Hyde Park”....

Most politicians try to keep their financial backers un-indicted until after the election. But Obama’s biggest early sponsor, dual U.S.-Syrian citizen Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko, is already indicted by a federal grand jury. Now he is going to trial in a Chicago federal court. Rezko, along with co-defendants Ali Ata and Abdelhamid Chaib, face federal grand jury charges presented in October 2006 by the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald. The case centers on allegations of fraud between 2000 and 2004 in the sale of 17 Papa Johns’ Pizza parlors in Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee. The case may begin with...

<p>Seeing Ghosts: Obama's ties to Ayers and Auchi are distant, but his foes plan to pounce .</p> <p>The Obama campaign is planning to expand its research and rapid-response team in order to repel attacks it anticipates over his ties to 1960s radical Bill Ayers, indicted developer Antoin Rezko and other figures from his past.</p>

CHICAGO (AP) -- A mysterious billionaire with his hands on a major chunk of Chicago real estate and at least passing familiarity with some of Illinois' top politicians has surfaced in the federal fraud trial of political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko. Nadhmi Auchi, the world's 279th richest person on the Forbes magazine list, is the founder and CEO of Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holdings. He presides over a business empire that stretches from the shores of the Red Sea through Russia, western Europe and North America. The company boasts investments in banking and finance, hotels, aviation, pharmaceuticals and real estate --...

Out on bail awaiting trial, dual US-Syrian citizen, Antoin ‘Tony' Rezko, was rousted out of bed by police pounding on the doors of his Chicago mansion the morning of Monday, January 28. According to the Associated Press: "U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve jailed Rezko...saying he had disobeyed her order to keep her posted on his financial status. Among other things, he failed to tell her about a $3.5 million loan from London-based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi -- a loan that was later forgiven in exchange for shares in a prime slice of Chicago real estate. Rezko gave $700,000...

Accused Illinois fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko is in debt by $50 million and relies on "family" handouts of $7,500 a month to pay monthly costs, according to a previously sealed court transcript reviewed by ABC News. Rezko's bleak financial picture raises the question of how the Rezkos were able to buy a vacant lot adjoining the home of Sen. Barack Obama in 2005, at a time Rezko says he was already in deep debt. Rezko also reveals in the testimony, before Judge Amy St. Eve on Jan. 16, 2007, that he already knew he was under federal investigation at the...

Buried on page 59 of the indictment is a reference to one of many alleged kickbacks on a state contract that appears to have ended up as a $10,000 donation to an unnamed “political candidate”. The kickback was allegedly arranged by Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a Syrian immigrant who became a powerful political fixer in Chicago. The “political candidate” who benefited from the $10,000 has been identified as Barack Obama, the Democratic contender calling for “change we can believe in” in the presidential race, who is said to be a longtime friend of Mr Rezko. Mr Rezko goes on trial for...

Middle east updates!

You probably would have heard of Nadhmi Auchi by now if Sen. Barack Obama were a Republican... A great deal of Mr. Auchi's money was made doing business with the regime of Saddam Hussein, much of it under the table. In 1987, Mr. Auchi helped French and Italian firms win a huge oil pipeline contract in Iraq, chiefly by paying off Iraqi officials, according to testimony given by an Italian banker to prosecutors in Milan. In 2003, he was convicted for his role in what was then the largest scandal in French history, involving payoffs from executives of the oil...

Hillary Clinton has complained bitterly that her competitor, Barack Obama, has received a cushy ride so far from the mainstream media. That may be changing, however, with the corruption trial of Obama’s political booster Tony Rezko. The New York Times takes an in-depth look into Rezko’s connections and asks how the Chicago fixer kept finding so much money with so many creditors: Tony Rezko was obviously in trouble. He was a defendant in at least a dozen lawsuits, federal investigators in Chicago were poking around, and his name was in newspaper articles about corruption and fraud.None of that stopped Mr....

New attention is being focused on indirect connections between Iraqi-British billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, who has been tied to illegal activities in Iraq and France, and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. Auchi gave at least $10.5 million to Obama fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, including a payment of $3.5 million that coincided with Mr. Obama's purchase in 2005 of a $1.65 million Chicago house, the London Times reported Tuesday. The newspaper said the timing of the payment and the house purchase, along with the purchase of land next door by Mr. Rezko's wife Rita from the same seller, raise questions about...

While the NYT’s prints a foolish attack piece with lots of innuendo about the Republican nominee, they remain silent on a story that is quite big AND has plenty of evidence to suggest wrongdoing. Something which you can bet your bottom dollar will see the light of day over and over and over again if Obama is the nominee. No fawning over the Messiah by the English press here. Hell, they even put up a picture of Obama that isn’t flattering: The story itself is well done, but can get convoluted at times with all the figures. Here is the...

More Details for the Obama Files by John Batchelor The handshake heard round the world took place in April, 2004, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago between Barack Obama and a mysterious London billionaire named Nadhmi Auchi. Until James Bone and Dominic Kennedy asserted the handshake took place in their February 25, 2008, Times Online article, "Barack Obama embarassed by billionaire link to home deal," the meeting between these two political actors was unconfirmed. However now that the report has been published in London, where the libel laws are draconian enough that the Mr. Auchi and his esteemed media lawyer...

Barack Obama embarrassed by billionaire link to home dealJames Bone in New York and Dominic Kennedy in London February 25, 2008 Barack Obama now admits his involvement in this land deal was a ?boneheaded mistake? (Charles Rex Arbogast/Pool/EPA) A British-Iraqi billionaire lent millions of dollars to Barack Obama's fundraiser just weeks before an imprudent land deal that has returned to haunt the presidential contender, an investigation by The Times discloses. The money transfer raises the question of whether funds from Nadhmi Auchi, one of Britain’s wealthiest men, helped Mr Obama buy his mock Georgian mansion in Chicago. A company related...

Who is Nahdmi Auchi, who according to the British newspaper TimesOnline may have lent money through a company he controls in Panama to support a fundraiser for U.S. Senator Barack Obama in May 2005? Who is Mr. Auchi? A British billionaire living in London, born in Iraq in 1937. And why would he, as it is alleged, lend money via a Panama company, Fintrade Services -- of which his wife, Ibtisam Auchi, is said to be a director -- to a freshmen U. S. senator from Illinois just a few months after he is sworn in as a very junior...

February 8, 2008 From the Desk of Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton: Hillary Lends Her Campaign $5 Million – Where Did the Money Come From?     Last week, in this space I wrote that Bill Clinton’s business dealings around the world could create a conflict of interest with respect to Hillary’s position in the U.S. Senate and her candidacy for President of the United States.  This week, Hillary showed us all why we should be very concerned.   According to the New York Post:  “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million from her personal bank account late...

Antoin "Tony" Rezko was arrested early Monday at his Wilmette home by federal agents on an alleged bond violation, the Tribune has learned. Investigators had in recent weeks become concerned about the movement of some of his finances, a source said. Rezko, who is scheduled to stand trial on corruption charges in less than a month at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, was taken into custody due to an alleged bond violation, a source confirmed.

Newly released documents from the Bush administration show that a former member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle has resurfaced inside the new Iraqi government, bringing charges of corruption, bribery and bid-rigging. As a result, millions of U.S. aid dollars and billions in Iraqi government funds have disappeared in an ongoing scandal that is poised to engulf Baghdad and Washington. Worse still, a leading candidate for the top elected post in Iraq has also been implicated in the report as having taken "payoffs" in order to rig a major government cell phone contract. According to a May 2004 U.S. Defense Department...

Inside Iraqi Corruption Charles R. Smith Tuesday, March 29, 2005 John A. Shaw is a curious example of Washington politics gone mad. Shaw is a veteran government employee who served inside the White House under Presidents Ford, Nixon and Reagan and was an associate deputy secretary in the Department of Commerce. In 2001, Shaw was appointed by Bush Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld to head the newly formed Office of International Technology Security. In this post, Shaw began the difficult task of reforming government controls over the export of sensitive technology to foreign countries. In 2003, Shaw began investigating allegations of...

France’s longest-running political and corporate corruption scandal ended yesterday with prison sentences and fines for 23 former executives at the Elf oil company and their associates.Loik le Floch-Prigent, 57, Elf’s chief executive between 1989 and 1993, authorised the embezzlement of £210 million while Elf was state-owned. The money went on bribes for politicians and middlemen and lavish lifestyles for senior Elf executives.He was jailed for five years and fined £260,000.Nadhmi Auchi, a British billionaire, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and fined £1.4 million. Auchi, who fled his native Iraq under Saddam Hussein, was found guilty of accepting illegal...