Follow the Money: Pringle: Curtain Time for Obama (Short Version Part 1)

Evelyn Pringle has written a condensed version of Part 1 to her May 13, 2008, article "Curtain Time for Obama". Scroll down.

The full 11-page version of Part 1 released May 11, 2008, is here at OpEdNews and here at Scoop (NZ).


In her introduction to Part 1, Pringle wrote:

Republicans have enough damaging information against Barack Obama to knock him off the ballot before the November election. Those at the top of the Democratic Party know this by now and voters need to recognize that if they nominate him they are throwing the election. Nothing else can explain why they would allow this disaster to happen.

Pringle then sets the stage for what lies ahead:

More than two solid months of investigation leads to the conclusion that following the names linked to Riverside Park is the key to understanding Operation Board Games.

~snip~

Most important for connecting the dots in the Board Games investigation, is the clarification that it is not the Rezko case. The only reason it's always referred to as the "Rezko" case is because he happens to be the first defendant to be brought to trial.

Also, the first trial is focused on the corruption of two Illinois boards, the panel that approves investments from the $40 billion pension fund of the Teachers Retirement System, and the Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves all medical facility construction projects in Illinois.

But the Operation Board Games cases involve corruption with officials and employees in many other state agencies and real estate deals are at the heart of most with Riverside Park front and center.

Part 2 of "Curtain Time for Obama," which "shows that Obama was "the inside guy in the Illinois senate as far as setting up the Health Facilities Planning Board to extort contributions from companies in exchange for the approval of applications to build medical facilities," was released May 13, 2008. It is available here at OpEdNews.

Part 3 to "Curtain Time for Obama" was released May 15, 2008.

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The investigation called "Operation Board Games" will lead to Obama's downfall and it will begin with what he claims was a "boneheaded" mistake in entering into real estate deal with the Syrian-born immigrant, Antoin 'Tony' Rezko, less than a month after Rezko received a $3.5 million loan from the Iraqi-born billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who ended up with Riverside Park, a $2.5 billion 62-acre development project in the Chicago Loop.

Following the names linked to Riverside Park is the key to understanding Operation Board Games and almost without fail, the people identified as investors in Riverside Park contributed to Obama's US senate campaign.

Auchi ended up with the grand prize but can not set foot on the development site in Chicago because he is not allowed in this country. In a January 26, 2008 Affidavit, filed by an FBI Agent, the following description of Auchi and his company was given:

“General Mediterranean is owned by Nadhmi Auchi, who public source documents describe as a British-based Iraqi billionaire who was convicted several years ago in France on fraud charges. Auchi was sentenced to 15 months in prison and fined $2 million euros, but the sentence was suspended as long as Auchi committed no new crimes.

“Thereafter, in November 2005, after Auchi was unable to enter the United States, Rezko directly appealed to the State Department to permit Auchi to enter ... and, it appears, asked certain Illinois government officials to do the same.”

Confidential informant, John Thomas, began working undercover for the Feds in 2003, when he pleaded guilty in federal court in New York, to fraud charges, according to an October 3, 2007 report by Thomas Corfman in Crain's Chicago Business News.

Thomas began cooperating in the probe “with a focus" on Rezko's financing deals "on 62 acres at Roosevelt and Clark and vacant land at the southwest corner of Chicago and Hudson,” according to the February 10, 2008 Chicago Sun-Times.

In other words, “financing deals” with a “focus” on Riverside Park.

The former New Yorker, Corfman wrote, "has been conducting an undercover sting investigation ... while working in the Chicago commercial real estate industry."

Thomas says he recorded frequent visits by Obama and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to the office of Rezmar, Rezko's real estate development firm, in 2004 and 2005.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to be president in 2008

The Board Games investigation must be viewed with an understanding that Blagojevich was supposed to be the candidate running for president during this election cycle.

The Illinois political mob already had a fundraising operation in place for Blagojevich by 2004, and its safe to assume that when Obama and Rezko first started setting up the real estate deal in December 2004, Obama never thought about any repercussions on his run for president.

Understanding what Tribune columnist, John Kass, refers to as the “Illinois Combine,” is also crucial to understanding Board Game. In his March 28, 2008, column, Kass invited basically anyone to start using the term Combine, particularly “if they're having difficulty explaining how two parties can be as one when there's money on the table,” he said.

In gathering comments for his column, Kass called former US Senator, Peter Fitzgerald and asked about the Rezko trial, “what do you call that connection that Stuart Levine describes from the witness stand, you know that arrangement across party lines, with politically powerful men leveraging government to make money--what do you call it?”

"The Illinois Combine," he said. "The bipartisan Illinois political combine.”

“And all these guys being mentioned, they're part of it," he told Kass. "In the final analysis, The Combine's allegiance is not to a party, but to their pocketbooks.”

“They're about making money off the taxpayers," he added. According to Kass, ““the Rezko trial is part of the U.S. Justice Department's attack on The Combine.”

Illinois Combine corruption leads to Iraq

The ““Combine,” includes many members living in the Chicago area of Middle Eastern descent and the trail of corruption leads straight to the killing fields in Iraq. The front-page of the April 26, 2008, Sun-Times provided the lead-in to the final subplot found at the end of the Board Games investigation when it reports:

"An ex-international fugitive helped spring Tony Rezko from jail earlier this month, putting up homes that comprise nearly one-third of the $8.5 million in property and cash securing Rezko's bail."

"The three homes belonging to former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae -- a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen who broke out of a Baghdad jail in 2006 -- are part of a long list made public ... following a Sun-Times request."

Shortly after he escaped in December 2006, Alsammarae called New York Times reporter James Glatz, and said he did it the "Chicago way." Alsammarae is now living west of Chicago in a subdivision, “where homes range in price from $1.5 million to $4 million,” according to the December 21, 2006 New York Times.

Rezko was arrested in Chicago the same month Alsammarae was found guilty of the first in what would be a dozen convictions related to corrupt deals he made as electricity minister between August 2003 and May 2005.

Alsammarae was recruited from Chicago by the Bush administration in the fall of 2002 for a project called the “Future of Iraq,” to plot the take-over of Iraq months before Americans were told of Bush’s plan to take the country to war.

He was appointed minister of electricity in August 2003, and was photographed at a White House ceremony in the Oval Office on September 22, 2003, at which Bush called him a "good soul," who "inherited a system of a corrupt tyrant."

Less then three months later, other members of the “Combine,” now indicted as co-schemers, flew to Washington on a private jet to attend a White House Christmas party on December 3, 2003, including Rezko, Levine, William Cellini, and Robert Kjellander.

According John Batchelor, in a March 3, 2008 Human Events report, an Iraqi official in Baghdad says they want Alsammarae back and the case is rock solid. "We have a four-inch-thick file of his crimes," the official said.

He also said it has "Dates, bank accounts, dummy companies, a lot of them in the States."

An Iraqi politician, who Batchelor says has "extensive knowledge of the Iraqi diaspora before and after the fall of Baghdad," told him:

"Alsammarae is the weakest link in the chain of people who stole money from the CPA and the Iraqi people since 2003. The evidence against him is strong and convincing. His conviction is a problem for the people in his gang. The Baathists."

Batchelor says Iraqi officials in Baghdad speak of Auchi as a "Saddam guy," and a member of the Baathist gang who has "beggared Iraq for 50 years."

The first allegations of Auchi’s bid rigging date back to the first major contracts in Iraq. On November 9, 2003, Time Magazine reported the US was reviewing a decision to grant the mobile license for Baghdad and central Iraq to a consortium led by Egyptian telecom giant Orascom because of its ties to Auchi, described as "an Iraqi-born billionaire who built his fortune partly through arms deals with the Iraqi regime in the 1980s."

Reports indicating the Combine's corruption reached Alsammarae in Iraq began in mid-summer 2005. On July 29, 2005, Sandra Jones reported in Crain's:

““Rezmar ... controlled by Tony Rezko, a controversial confidant of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, entered into a joint venture with a British firm in a $150-million deal to build a power plant in Iraq.”

The contract was signed with "Iraq’s ministry of electricity," Jones reported. The project would be managed by Blagojevich's previous top official, Michael Rumman, she wrote, "former director of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, the state's internal operations real estate agency.”

Rumman was a major investor in Riverside Park and CEO of a company managing the project until he unexpectedly resigned five months before Rezko's trial. On October 5, 2007, Crain's reported, "Rumman has quietly resigned as CEO of a mixed-use project..."

Crain's noted that "his resignation is another odd twist in the long-delayed project."

In a January 16, 2007 hearing, Rezko told the judge, "Rezmar International entered into contract with the Ministry of Electricity ... to build a power plant and sell power to the government. And we were negotiating for over, now, I guess, almost two years."

Rezko's attorney told the court Rezmar had not assets: "They were just going to -- if the contract was given, as I understand the financing was going to be a Letter of Credit from the Iraqi government and other financing; and, then, they were going to put together someone to build or supply the electricity."

In addition to the power plant contract, Alsammarae also signed a $50 million contract with Companion Security, another Illinois firm that was thrown together by Rezko and ex-Chicago cop, Daniel Frawley, with an address that turned out to be a house owned by Frawley's sister, Maureen Frawley, who was a cop at the time.

On March 5, 2008, the Sun-Times reported, “a new accusation has surfaced that Rezko paid a $1.5 million bribe in an effort to win a $50 million business deal in Iraq.”

“In a court filing,” the Times said, “Rezko's lawyers say that prosecutors accused him ... of paying the bribe to Aiham Alsammarae, Iraq's former minister of electricity.”

The source for the charge was reported to be Daniel Mahru, Rezko's former partner in the Rezmar real estate development firm, who was the attorney for the contract.

Obama and Blagojevich became tied to the scandal when reports surfaced that Frawley sought their help in carrying out the contract a year after Alsammarae left office, and around the same time he was thrown in jail in Iraq.

In April 2006, Frawley began working with Blagojevich's office. On June 12, 2006, a letter marked “CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS CORRESPONENCE,” from the "Homeland Security Advisor to the Governor," was sent to the Iraqi Minister of Electrical Power Grid, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Defense, stating:

““The state of Illinois is greatly interested in assisting to facilitate the training, within Illinois, of Iraqi Police Recruits charged with the security of the Power Grid generation facilities within the City of Bagdad.”

Blagojevich's office requested a "letter of intent" and said, the source of this letter, ““should be from any one of the three separate Iraqi Governmental Ministries indicated above (or one of similar authority), together with an indication of the number of trainees to be included in each training cycle and the funding available to insure that your training goals can be met.”

The letter from Blagojevich's advisor concluded with the statement: “Looking forward to seeing this worthy project’s beginning within Illinois.”

After the state offered a proposed training site, Frawley started meeting with Seamus Ahern, who runs Obama's senate office in Moline, Illinois. "Frawley and Ahern discussed the proposal over a period of about six months," the August 7, 2007 Sun-Times notes.

In the summer of 2006, reports about Companion and Frawley and stolen cash and guns appeared in the media. On August 14, 2007, the Forest Park Review reported: "Almost 16 months ago Sgt. Maureen Frawley's home ... was the site of a bizarre burglary in which more than $100,000 in cash and several guns were allegedly stolen."

"Four days later, though," the Review noted, "the missing items were left on Frawley's doorstep with no apparent explanation."

Citing a police report, the Sun-Times said Daniel Frawley “became defensive about questions relating to when, where and how he obtained the money."

"He told police he had withdrawn the money -- $100 bills in bundles of $5,000 -- from a Chicago bank." His lawyer told police the money had been “legally obtained by Daniel Frawley through real-estate transactions."

Both Blagojevich and Obama now claim they never knew Rezko was partnered with Frawley in the contract signed by Alsammarea when they were working with Frawley.

During a March 14, 2008 interview with the Sun-Times, Obama was asked: "Did you ever meet Nadhmi Auchi or Dr. Aiham Alsammarae?"

"I have to say I do not recall meeting them. It's been reported that a dinner Tony hosted at the four seasons, I don't have the exact date . . .

"Tony called and asked if I could stop by because he had a number of friends that he had invited to dinner and he wanted mew to meet them.

"I told him that I would be happy to come by if my schedule allowed it. And it did. Although I couldn't, I think, stay for dinner, so I remember meeting a bunch of people who I had not met before. I frankly don't remember what their names were.

"I have no specific recollection. They may have been there. I can't say unequivocally that I did not meet them, but I just don't recall."

Prosecution of corrupt Iraqi officials halted by Prime Minister

On October 4, 2007, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held its first hearing on "Assessing the State of Iraqi Corruption." During the hearing, the circumstances surrounding Alsammarae's convictions and escape became a hot issue of debate.

The main topic of discussion was a secret order issued by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's office that bars the investigation and prosecution of corruption cases involving the Iraqi president, the Council of Ministers, or any current or former ministers without Maliki's consent, which effectively grants immunity to all high level officials.

The committee also was informed that Maliki had issued orders to prevent further investigation or specific cases for prosecution, including two against Maliki's own cousin.

When questioned about the shut down of the investigation of Iraqi officials, the Bush administration's witness Lawrence Butler from the State Department, refused to answer and said "questions which go to the broad nature of our bilateral relationship with Iraq are best answered in a classified setting."

When asked about the secret order issued by Maliki's office, he claimed the State Department had concluded that the matter was too sensitive to address in public.

Prior to the hearing, the committee reviewed reports prepared by a team of American investigators working out of the Office of Accountability and Transparency at the US Embassy in Iraq in what could be likened to a Board Game investigation of Iraqi officials.

A review of cases for the Ministry of Electricity shows there were a total of 175 investigations but the only high level Iraqi official ever convicted in Bagdad is the former minister now living in Chicago.

The Iraqi ministers are the equivalent of Secretaries appointed to head federal agencies in the US government. For example, Alsammarae's title might be the Secretary of Energy here, or the minister of defense would be the Secretary of Defense.

The Commission of Public Integrity in Iraq is the agency in charge of investigating corruption and is the equivalent of the FBI. Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, former commissioner of the CPI, testified a the hearing and told the panel corruption in Iraq "has stopped the process of reconstruction in Iraq."

The cost of corruption across all ministries in Iraq, Radhi said, "has been estimated to be as high as $18 billion." The CPI has lost the ability to fight corruption after implicating Iraqi officials, he testified, due to "violence, intimidation and personal attacks."

"Since the establishment of the Commission," he told the committee, "31 employees have been assassinated as well as at least an additional 12 family members."

"In a number of cases," Radhi said, "my staff and their relatives have been kidnapped or detained and tortured prior to being killed."

"Many of these people were gunned down at close range," he stated. Radhi fled Iraq in August 2007, and is seeking asylum in the US.

The US Comptroller General, David Walker, testified that "widespread corruption undermines efforts to develop the government's capacity by robbing it of needed resources, some of which are used to fund the insurgency."

During their investigation, the Embassy team assessed the cases of corruption in the individual ministries and the ability of the CPI to investigate and prepare cases for prosecution with 120 investigators. "Currently, Iraq is not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws," according to the Embassy report.

Contract fraud is the greatest violation in the Ministry of Interior but according to the Embassy team, CPI investigators assigned to the MOI "have unanimously expressed their fear of being assassinated should they aggressively pursue their duties at MOI."

Each ministry has an Inspector General's office to investigate corruption within the agency and the Embassy staff reports that:

"Each of the dangers described for the CPI investigators is compounded for the IG
investigators. The general level of violence in Baghdad multiplies the intimidation factor in that murders are so common that tying them back to the work place would be difficult even for an accomplished police force.

"Knowing this, those confronted with criminal activity are fully aware of the near immunity available to violent criminals. So great is the danger in the ministries as to make nearly all of the IG actions suspect."

In Iraq, Trial Judges hear criminal cases similar to Judges in the US, and Investigative Judges (IJ) review all CPI investigations, and determine whether a case is advanced to a criminal proceeding before a Trial Judge. Investigative Judges can be likened "to a hybrid, Federal Agent - Assistant US Attorney," the report notes.

"Judges are regularly subject to intimidation throughout Iraq," according to the report.

During the hearing, Massachusetts Congressman, Stephen Lynch, tried to question witnesses about the Alsammarae case beginning with Radhi. He told Lynch the cost of Alsammarae's corruption while serving as minister was $2 billion.

"Mr. Alsammarae, I understand," Lynch said, "was arrested and held in prison inside the Green Zone, but he somehow escaped."

"Do you know the facts surrounding that?" he asked. "I know some of the facts that surround this case and I know that a U.S- protection company has helped him get away," Radhi stated.

"Do you know what the name of that U.S. protection agency might have been?" Lynch asked. "If believe it is DynCorp," the Judge stated.

Lynch also tried to questioned Stewart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. "I have tried to establish that the former Iraqi Electricity Minister was accused of corruption of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars," he said, and further stated:

"He was arrested. He was brought to the Green zone. I believe it was a DOD facility. We are talking the Unites States Military.

"He was then broken out of that jail or removed from that jail by a U.S. contractor.

"We have evidence or testimony that it was DynCorp."

"Mr. Bowen," Lynch asked, "is that your understanding of the facts of this case?"

"Yes," Bowen said, "but with the one additional fact that he was convicted by that Iraqi court and was awaiting sentencing."

"Is there an investigation ongoing relative to the handling of this case?" Lynch asked. "I can't comment on our ongoing investigations," Bowen replied.

"Can you tell me," he asked Bowen, "the allegation that this gentleman is in Chicago, is that correct? Is that your understanding?" Lynch asked.

"That is what I have heard, yes," Bowen said.

The committee called Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, to testify at an October 25, 2007, hearing and chairman, Henry Waxman (D-CA), asked if she was aware of the secret order of Maliki's office.

"The point of the order," he told her, "is that Prime Minister Maliki has issued an order saying that he may not be investigated, nor may his ministers be investigated for corruption, which means they're immunized from anything -"

"I will have to get back to you," she said, "I don't know precisely what you are referring to."

"I think you ought to tell us that you are as outraged as we are," Waxman stated, "because we want corruption investigated and not just left for you to get back to us another time."

"I must get back to you on the specifics of the order that you are talking about," Rice said, "because I don't know whether there are other bases on which people can be investigated."

Waxman then published a commentary in the November 5, 2007, LA Times saying two truths have emerged from Iraq in recent months: "First, corruption is so pervasive in Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government that political progress in Iraq may be impossible."

"Second," he wrote "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and our embassy in Baghdad are inexplicably neglecting this corrosive threat."

Rice never bothered to get back to the committee and on March 3, 2008, Waxman sent her a letter stating:

"It is now more than four months ... The Committee still has received no communications from you ... Despite your promises to follow-up with the Committee, we still do not know what your views are about the order."

"For these reasons," the letter states, "I ask that you provide the Committee with copies of all documents relating to ... orders issued by ... Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki."

Combine plots to shut down Operation Board Games

Testimony in the Rezko trial in April 2008, shows the "Combine,” was working on a plot as late 2006, similar to the stunt pulled by Maliki with Judge Radhi in 2007.

On April 22, 2008, prosecutors informed the judge that co-schemer, Steve Loren, was ready to testify that he was told by Cellini, that Kjellander had worked with Karl Rove to get the leader of the Operation Board Games fired.

Fitzgerald is most famous for the conviction of Scooter Libby in the CIA leak case. Libby took the fall for Bush, Dick Cheney and especially, Karl Rove. Rove was the first source for the leak. Scooter's case was heating up at the same time as Operation Board Games.

The next morning, Hamilton informed the judge that Jordanian-native Ali Ata, the former head of the Illinois Finance Authority, had entered into a plea agreement and would testify that he received the same information in 2004. Ata is also an investor in Riverside Park.

Three days later, co-schemer Elie Maloof testified that he went to Rezko's house in February 2005, to let him know he had received a subpoena and Rezko told him to reveal little because the investigation would soon be over. Maloof said Rezko explained, "that Patrick Fitzgerald will be terminated and that Dennis Hastert will name his replacement."

"The federal prosecutor will no longer be the same federal prosecutor," Rezko told him. And a new US attorney would "order the prosecutor to stop the investigation."

Maloof is one of the donors used to funnel two $10,000 contributions to Obama from the pension fund kickback. Maloof also made a $10,000 contribution to Blagojevich.

On May 1, 2008, Ata testified he was told Fitzgerald would be gone after Bush was reelected in 2004. "Mr. Rezko informed me that they had just finished meeting with Mr. Kjellander and that there will be a change in U.S. attorney's office come the new administration," he said.

"Kjellander will talk to Karl Rove and make a change in the U.S. attorney's office," he said Rezko told him. He also assured Ata there was still a plan to get rid of Fitzgerald in 2006. When asked why he believed Rezko could get him removed, Ata said, "Mr. Rezko has the influence and power to do that."

One time Ata said, "Mr. Rezko said the FBI was approaching people ... asking people to cooperate,” and "Those who do will be dealt with."

After he met with Federal agents the first time, Ata told the jury he got a voice-mail from Rumman saying Rumman was traveling with "our friend," meaning Rezko, and asked Ata to delay meeting with investigators.

On his final day on the stand, Ata said he finally agreed to cooperate with the Feds in April 2008, after a person delivered a threat. He testified that prosecutors once had him wear a wire to make a recording after the person threatened him.

According to the Sun-Times, in addition to property pledged by Alsammarae to spring Rezko in April 2008, to post the $8 million bond, six people who are "current or former state employees," also put up property.

The list has three employees from Rumman's former Department of Central Management Services, including Mustafa Abdalla. Campaign records show Abdalla gave Obama $1,000 on June 30, 2003.

Rezko himself also came up with $380,000 in cash, which he claims he raised by selling his shares in Riverside Park - again.

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