Asked why he entered into Real estate transactions with Tony Rezko on National Network TV:
Well, my relationship is [that Tony Rezko] was somebody who I knew and had been a supporter for many years. He was somebody who had supported a wide range of candidates all throughout Illinois. Nobody had an inkling that he was involved in any problems….Barack Obama on CBS “Early Show” Jan. 23, 2008
Nobody had any indications that [Rezko] was engaging in wrongdoing….Barack Obama on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Jan. 23, 2008
Today I came across on the net at hanania.com, a shocking 2005 article which debunks yet more Obama lies. Before presenting the full article,and a bio for its author, here are the key takeaways in so far as concerns Obama and Rezko:
2) In 1997 Rezko used an African-American, Jabir Herbert Muhammad, the son of the late Elijah Mohammad a founder of the Nation of Islam, to serve as a front for a company he ran called Crucial inc so he could obtain a highly lucrative franchise for his Pizza business at O'hare
3) Crucially...in March 2005 three months before Obama and Rezco closed deals to buy real estate next door to each other, Chicago Tribune reported that Chicago officials charged that Jabir Herbert Muhammad had acted as a front for the real owner, Rezko, who is of Syrian Arab heritage and does not qualify for minority set-asides.
Although Muhammad said he ran Crucial Inc., city officials said the company was run by Abdelhamid "Al" Chaib, and longtime friend and Rezko business associate.
Rezko later told the Chicago Tribune that he did not do anything wrong and is surprised by all the attention.
Mayor Daley said the city’s investigation showed that Crucial Inc. should never have received the contract and should be stripped off its minority business certification.
So despite Obama's protestations about not knowing Tony Rezko was corrupt, it appears the mainstream Chicago media were already reporting on a fraud which effectively involved an Arab businessman stealing money which was earmarked to benefit the African American community. Whats equally clear is he must have known about Rezko's relationship with the son of the founder of the Nation of Islam.With all these shenanigans common knowledge around Chicago, Obama closes a deal to buy a mansion next door to a vacant lot simultaneously purchased in the name of Mrs Rezko in JUNE 2005... 3 months after the Chicago Tribune ran the story on Rezko's diverting money from African Americans into his own coffers. Then six months later in January 2006, Obama buys a strip of that vacant lot from the wife of the bankrupt Rezko, and admits to paying around 60k over the appraised value...and Obama still expects America to believe he didn't know that Rezko was corrupt when he did business with him. And pigs will fly out of my ....!
Arabs in Chicago discover political clout and controversy
June 8, 2005, Arab American Media Services
By Ray Hanania
For many years, Arab Americans in Chicago were relegated to behind-the-scenes fundraising, helping others to gain higher office while sitting on the sidelines waiting their turn.
Several ran for public office as "Arab American candidates" beginning in 1992, including this author, but all of the candidates lost. In one case, Miriam Zayed, a Democratic precinct captain and worker, ran for a prominent southwest suburban school district that included three high schools with the largest concentration of Arab students in the region.
Each year as she re-campaigned for office, her vote totals declined as her Arab heritage more and more became an issue.
This experience in Chicago contrasted from downstate Peoria, Illinois where mainly Lebanese Arabs have been able to win public office from municipal trustees to mayors, legislators and congressman. One of those, Congressman Ray LaHood, aid to former House Speaker Bob Michel, is now considered a strong possibility to challenge Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich next year.
Quietly, though, a group of wealthy Arab American businessmen based in Chicago forged alliances with key officials in state government in the mid-1990s. They locked in contracts and secured some low level jobs as state government changed from Republican to Democratic control.
In recent months, what was a quiet, deliberate assent to the top of Chicago and Illinois clout has exploded in front page newspaper controversies involving favoritism, poor job performance and allegations of wrongdoing.
The names and faces of these Arab American businessmen who have made it to the top include several nationally known players, such as Antoin Rezko and many more local players including the former head of the Chicago Chapter of the ADC, Ali Ata. Part of the challenge is the media bias against Arab Americans. Part of it is the lack of support Arab Americans get from their community. In the end, Arab American businessmen make easy targets for criticism and attacks.
Here's a look at the recent news reports:
Antoin Rezko
For years, Antoin "Tony" Rezko was a strong advocate of grassroots Arab American activism in Chicago, providing funds for election campaigns and community outreach from profits he earned from an inner-city rehab program and from his growing food franchise business.
Born in Aleppo, Syria. Rezko moved to Chicago after graduating from high school. He holds a bachelors and a masters degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology in civil engineering and construction management.
Rezko was often the largest contributor to Arab American campaigns for political office. Rezko once said that he felt proud to be able to contribute to his community.
Rezko is a member of the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, which was founded by Lebanese American Danny Thomas and has many Arab American members, and also other philanthropic organizations around the country, many that serve Arab American interests.
But several years ago, Rezko’s generosity began to appear on campaign disclosure forms for prominent politicians in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois.
Today, those ties have made him the focus of an intense investigation surrounding allegations he profited from political favoritism and is involved in an abuse of set-aside programs that give minorities a preference in winning state, county and city contracts.
Rezko is a co-owner of Rezmar which rehabs buildings in the inner city. With his Jewish American partner, Dan Mahru, Rezmar has transformed abandoned eyesores into livable residences.
As Rezmar grew, Rezko entered the food service business and today holds franchise rights for the Panda Express Asian fast-food chain in five Midwestern states, including Illinois, and in Papa John’s, the nation’s third largest pizza chain.
Last year, in a dispute with Papa Johns, Rezko renamed his 30 Chicago-based pizza franchises "Pappa Tony’s." Today, Rezko reportedly owns more than 125 restaurants around the Midwest and employs more than 3,000 people.
Illinois is divided into three levels of political clout, beginning with Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois. Chicago and Cook County have always been Democratic controlled. The state was Republican controlled under Governors Jim Edgar and George Ryan, and now is under Democratic control under Blagojevich.
With the blessing of Chicago Mayor Daley, Rezko’s restaurant ventures included several exclusive franchises along the city’s beachfronts, on Chicago Park District property.
When Cook County Board President John Stroger ran for election, Rezko made the single largest campaign contribution to his campaign, more than $90,000. In October 2000, Stroger introduced a resolution praising Rezko’s commitment to the county.
Stroger, the county’s first African American county board president, is enjoying his second term in office. He has named Rezko as honorary chairman of his upcoming re-election campaign.
Rezko also became an adviser to former Gov. George Ryan, who was later indicted on unrelated government corruption charges, and to Blagojevich. Rezko was introduced to state politics and Ryan’s predecessor, Jim Edgar, by Talat Othman, a longtime fundraiser for state and city government officials. Edgar is now an associate of the PR firm Rezko hired to represent him.
Rezko raised more than $500,000 for Blagojevich.
Under Blagojevich, Rezko’s role changed expanding from fundraising to helping to name individuals to head key state offices and commissions including several Rezko colleagues.
But controversy soon erupted.
In 1997, Panda Express won the right to open a lucrative concession at O’Hare International Airport under the city’s Minority Set-Aside program which directs large contracts to companies owned by Women, African Americans or Hispanics.
The city awarded a 10-year contract for O’Hare Airport to Crucial Inc. in 1999, which the city believed was owned by an African American, Jabir Herbert Muhammad, the son of the late Elijah Mohammad.
Crucial Inc.’s annual revenues skyrocketed from under $200,000 in each year before opening at O'Hare, to nearly $6 million in 2002, according to recently published reports. Crucial Inc. has earned nearly $16 million in its first four years at the airport.
Last March, Chicago officials charged that Jabir Herbert Muhammad had acted as a front for the real owner, Rezko, who is of Syrian Arab heritage and does not qualify for minority set-asides.
According to Mayor Daley, Jabir Muhammad founded Crucial Inc. in 1976. It was certified as a minority business in 1989. Rezko had been involved with the company since 1983, serving as a vice president and general manager. In July 1997, the company’s minority status lapsed but the forms were not renewed.
Although Muhammad said he ran Crucial Inc., city officials said the company was run by Abdelhamid "Al" Chaib, and longtime friend and Rezko business associate.
Rezko later told the Chicago Tribune that he did not do anything wrong and is surprised by all the attention. Daley said the city’s investigation showed that Crucial Inc. should never have received the contract and should be stripped off its minority business certification.
Rezko’s clout grows
Crucial Inc. was also hired as a subcontractor to telephone giant SBC Communications, which received an exclusive deal to provide 1,000 pay phones for Cook County Government.
A spokesman for Stroger said County officials are investigating to determine whether or not Crucial Inc. still meets the county’s minority business criteria. Six of Rezko’s relatives have been placed on the Cook County payroll, according to published reports.
In state government, Rezko’s ties resulted in a prize greater that lucrative financial contracts. At least three of his associates were appointed to influential positions overseeing hiring, contracts and policy.
They include:
- Former business partner Jack Lavin, named to Gov. Blagojevich’s cabinet as Director of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. He served as Rezko’s former CFO. Lavin is an officer of Crucial Inc.
- Winnetka Podiatrist Fortunee Massuda appointed by Blagojevich in 2003 to sit on the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. He is a partner in a real estate venture with Rezko.
- Kelly King Dibble, a Rezko business associate, was named by Gov. Blagojevich as executive director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority.
Abdelhamid "Al" Chaib, vice president of Crucial Inc., is the sole owner of the Subway sandwich shops that have secured the rights to operate at seven of the State’s Tollway oases. Chaib also is a director of Rezko Concessions Inc., which is Rezko's portion of the joint venture with Panda Express, state records show.
Already Rezko has become a target in the upcoming election campaign, Illinois State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka has alleged that Rezko is a part of a "shadow government" pulling the strings in the Blagojevich administration.
Rezko has a long history of supporting Arab American causes. He made a significant donation to help establish the Ibn Rushd Lectureship in Arabic in 2002 at the University of Chicago. Rezko served as a former Executive Director to the Muhammad Ali Foundation. And, he was named "Entrepreneur of the Decade" by the Arab-American Business and Professional Association. The president and founder of ABPA is a generous and successful Chicago Arab American businessman and political adviser, Talat Othman.
Another Arab Americans targeted
Recently, Ali Ata, the former president of the Chicago Chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and a close associate of Othman, also came under scrutiny, this time by Chicago’s other newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times.
Ata was a major contributor to the candidacy of Blagojevich, who served as a congressman before becoming governor. Ata reportedly donated more than $60,000 to Blagojevich. Ata has been active in supporting Arab American causes and was instrumental in helping to make ADC active in Chicago.
But Ata’s ties to the state date back to Edgar and Ryan. He and three partners received more than $3.2 million when they convinced the state to lease a building they owned at 3500 W. Grand Avenue on Chicago’s poverty-stricken West Side in the early 1990s.
Yet, the group, which included Faisal Mohammad, a prominent member and executive director of the the nearby al-Aqsa School which is located across from the Mosque Foundation/Bridgeview Mosque, reportedly defaulted on the property but failed to inform the state.
In January 2004, Ata was appointed to a $127,000-a-year job as executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, one of Blagojevich's showpiece government streamlining initiatives, even though he had no finance experience and held a degree in engineering. Ata left the post in March 2005 following a state audit of his agency that criticized its performance and practices.
A month later, Ata was offered a three-year contract worth a total of $165,600 to be a consultant to the Illinois Finance Authority on a coal-related energy initiative downstate. He declined the contract, according to the Sun-Times, after the newspaper began inquiring about his employment and the building lease.
State Auditor General William Holland criticized the Finance Authority's accounting and financial reporting practices during Ata's first six months at the helm. Ata told the newspaper he was not surprised because he faced "the herculean task of consolidating five state financial offices into one."
Blagojevich aides praised Ata’s performance.
But apparently, Ata may have violated state law by failing to disclose in annual state economic interest forms his interest and ownership in the 29,000 square foot, west Grand Avenue property.
Ata said he was not trying to hide anything. The building defaulted in 2003 and he took the job in January 2004. The form he would have completed in 2004 would have covered any interests in state contracts in the prior year.
A marketing executive with a water treatment chemical company in Naperville called Nalco, Ata is also an investor in several real estate ventures, including redevelopment project in Chicago at Roosevelt and Clark in which has a $50,000 stake.
He redevelopment is being led by Rezko’s firm, Rezmar Corp. Other investors in the Roosevelt and Clark development, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, include Michael Rumman, the outgoing director of Blagojevich's Central Management Services Department, and powerful state lobbyist William Filan, the cousin of Blagojevich's budget chief, John Filan.
In published reports, Ata insisted Rezko did not land him the post, claiming he has known Blagojevich longer than Rezko. Ata’s political ties date back to the Edgar administration. He served as a co-chair on fundraisers organized on behalf of Edgar, Ryan and Blagojevich.
Ata acknowledged that a Rezko nephew received a paid internship with the Finance Authority last summer while he was at the helm.
None of the individuals named in these controversies have been charged with wrongdoing as the investigation continues.
It is a shame that the community doesn't raly around these great leaders to help them and support them.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning Chicago journalist and nationally syndicated columnist. He can be reached at rayhanania@aol.com.)
Arabs in Chicago discover political clout and controversy
About the author of this article, Mr Hanania
Ray Hanania Bio
Ray Hanania is a veteran Chicago journalist. He covered Chicago City Hall politics and regional Illinois politics from 1977 through 1992, including seven years with the Chicago Sun-Times. His work included political column writing as well as daily news reporting, and feature and "big picture" analysis. It also included 18 months as the political writer for the "insider column," Page 10.He won several awards for his journalism, including two Peter Lisagor Awards from the Chicago Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and earned a nomination for a Pulitzer Prize from the Chicago Sun-Times for a series of stories exploring the Palestinian rebellion (Intifada).
During that time, he hosted live call-in radio talk show programs, including for 10 years with the 50,000 Watt giant WLS Radio, and substituted often for the morning drive personalities.
He was a regular on television's #1 Political Interview program "City Desk" hosted by Dick Kay on WMAQ-TV (NBC affiliate), appearing an average of 28 times each year to question political guests that ranged from governors, to senators and local officials. And, he appeared as a regular commentator on Joel Weisman's popular political roundtable every Friday, Chicago Week in Review (WTTW Channel 11 PBS), appearing as the City Hall reporter an average of 20 times each year. He appeared on and off on every single Chicago television news talk show program as an authority on Chicago politics, and co-hosted the Friday roundtable broadcast each week by NPR Chicago affiliate WBEZ, exploring regional political trends.
Ray also served as a panelist on the Chicago Mayoral debate in 1990, a contest that launched the mayoralty of Richard M. Daley.
In 1992, he launched the political campaign consulting Urban Strategies Group which provided political consulting, after experiencing a political campaign firsthand running as a "suicide candidate" in the 38th Illinois House District as a Democrat. (It's good to see how vicious some reporters in the news media who have no scruples can be, and to understand firsthand the experiences candidates have in the "fish bowl.")
Candidates and clients included a wide assortment of Chicago's colorful political landscape, writing speeches and designing web sites for Mayor Daley, designing web sites and message strategies for city agencies, managing and directing political campaigns for countless Chicago aldermen, Chicago Democratic committeemen, state legislators, county commissioners, and three successful candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Several clients included those with serious public relation challenges requiring extensive crisis management. And, experience includes international communications consulting.
He provided basic media training also to the Ministry of Information in the Palestine National Authority, working with Yasser Abed Rabbo who surfaced as one of the country's leading moderates speaking out against violence and in support of compromise with Israel. Hanania has been a longtime outspoken critic of violence and advocate of peaceful relations between Palestinians and Israelis. He has been tapped by the U.S. State Department and the US Information Agency to provide media training sessions, meetings and presentations during the past decade to foreign media and government officials. He participated in meeting with President Clinton and Israelis and Palestinian officials towards strengthening the Oslo Peace Accords.
Some of the successful clients have included Ald. Bernard Stone, County Commissioners Maria Pappas and Allan Carr, Congressmen Danny K. Davis, Bobby Rush, Hispanic Democratic Organization, Louis Guiterrez, Ald. Danny Solis, Democratic Central Committeewoman Iris Martinez, and an independent slate in Indiana's local municipal elections.
Hanania has more than a decade experience as a senior manager for a Chicago Public Relations firm, overseeing B2B and B2C media and PR strategies. He also managed public affairs and grassroots campaigns for several major Illinois corporations in gaming, telecommunications, aviation, healthcare, liquor industry, and education
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