Follow the Money: Rezmar & Obama

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a shady Chicago, Illinois, political fund-raiser, have been "friends" for 17 years. As a lawyer at the small Chicago law firm Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, Tim Novak wrote April 23, 2007, in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Obama "worked on low-income housing deals involving Rezko's company" Rezmar Corp. Rezko "has been Obama's political patron since he ran for the Illinois Senate a dozen years ago. Obama has apologized for buying a piece of property from Rezko's wife [in 2006] to expand his yard," Novak wrote.

"Obama, who has worked as a lawyer and a legislator to improve living conditions for the poor, took campaign donations from Rezko even as Rezko's low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many African-American families in buildings riddled with problems -- including squalid living conditions, vacant apartments, lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers," Novak wrote.

"Rezmar kept getting city and state funding, even as earlier projects fell into disrepair and financial troubles. But their company, Rezmar Corp., did come up with $1,000 to give to the political campaign fund of Barack Obama, the newly elected state senator whose district included the unheated building," Novak wrote.