Thanx

After the 2004 Democratic Convention Obama’s 1995 book flew off the shelves.

“In just over two years, it has sold about 500,000 copies in the United States and is widely admired for its writing (all Obama’s) and message. A rough guess as to the royalties the book has earned from all its versions (Obama won a Grammy for his reading of the audio version) is about $1 million. This bonanza for Obama and Dystel was good fortune at its absolute earned best.”

This would equal close to $2.00 per book and would match his tax return for 2005.

Year 2005 $1,140,000 Other Buisness

“Between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator, Obama signed a two-book deal with Crown for “seven figures” (probably somewhere in the vicinity of $1.5–$2.0 million). By signing the contract before taking office, which Hillary Clinton also did on her book deal, Obama does not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting that applies to members of Congress. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream was published this month to great fanfare and sold, according to Bookscan, the service that tracks about three-fourths of book sales, 67,000 copies in its first week.”

This was written in October 2006

Let’s assume that Obama is getting 15% of the price of the book. On Barnes and Noble, it sells new at $15.00 which would give him $2.25 per book. In order to match his income listed as other business, he would have had to sell $2,000,000 books from October 1, 2006 – December 31, 2007. A book selling 500,000 per year is considered a best seller.

Year 2006 $ 506,000 Other Business
Year 2007 $3,972,000 Other Business

That would be 133,000 books per month for 15 straight months.

Where did all this other business come from??

Here is a link to all of the Obama tax returns from 2000-2007.

SBD

JOHN A. SHAW (Opinion: former senior official of US Defense, State, and Commerce departments)
October 10, 2008

Barack Obama has been appropriately strident in his condemnation of the mortgage-based financial corruption which nearly led to the collapse of the investment banking system in the United States. But there are some strong smelling financial skeletons in his own closet. Obama has his own personal housing crisis that is tied not into Fanny Mae, but into a corrupt international financial combine headed by Nadhmi Auchi, the convicted Iraqi billionaire at the center of the Elf Aquitaine corruption trial in France. Auchi has been shown to be the fountainhead of a source of corruption flowing from Iraq, to France, Italy, and the United States. His financial network, under a Luxembourg company called General Mediterranean Holdings, spread from Baghdad and the Middle East to Paris, (where Auchi successfully posited Saddam’s UN Oil for Food scheme), London, Washington, and Chicago, making very few ripples and raising no concerns.

Rezko had identified Obama as a good political target before he graduated from Harvard Law School. He was both the source of Obama’s employment and of his largest political donations during his short political career. Rezko had no financial source apart from Auchi, his partner of over a decade. Rezko was also the source of the financing for Obama’s $2.3 million mansion despite his having no clear source of funding apart from Auchi. What did he get from Obama in return?

His seemingly innocent investments with Rezko in the Middle West, however, went hand in hand with Rezko’s extensive scheme to trade off campaign donations to Illinois politicians for jobs and multimillion dollar state and city contracts. That strategy appears to have tied in as well to Joseph A. Cari, Jr., a Clinton administration official who served as Democratic National Committee Finance Chairman in 1993-94, and who, like Rezko, was found guilty of extortion of Illinois officials in 2006, and similarly is awaiting sentencing. Cari was Clinton’s national finance chairman when Rezko and Auchi made their White House visits. Cari is now managing director of a Middle East trade and investment fund in New York. How many of Rezko’s donations and US investments originated with and were dependent on Auchi? Is there any evidence that Rezko had any other major source of funding? How long had the Auchi network been in place in Chicago? And what were Auchi’s connections to the Iraqi spy ring about to go to trial in Detroit, who in late 2002 paid two Democratic congressmen to go to Iraq and oppose the war, and which flourished on UN Oil for Food vouchers?

So we have a pattern of buying influence which tied directly into the Illinois Democratic Party, the Daley machine, and the Democratic National Finance Committee. It is no wonder that Barack Obama “has no recollection” of being at a welcoming dinner feting Auchi at Rezko’s house in April 2004. At that moment Auchi was flying high despite his corruption conviction in France: He was then still the darling of the neocon cabal at the defense department, which was so heavily invested in Iraq. He had been a welcomed guest at two White Houses, and appeared to own the entire Illinois government. We still do not have any sense of the full extent of his influence.

A month later, however, his five year visa to the United States was revoked because of the findings of the DoD report on his central role in fixing the contracts for the entire Iraqi telecommunications system. In the ensuring four and a half years the outlines of his role as an ongoing arms dealer responsible for importing and exporting munitions into and out of Iraq, and as the financial ringmaster of reconstruction corruption in Iraq, have become increasingly evident, despite extensive efforts to cover up his role by Iraq reconstruction authorities and a submissive and buyable media. Auchi simply bought everyone he needed to buy in Iraq and the United States to carry out his Iraq agenda. Before his sentencing at the end of this month, however, Rezko may broaden our understanding of Auchi’s larger agenda.

But his underwriting of the purchase of Obama’s multimillion dollar Chicago mansion may have been the step too far which finally brought down Auchi’s grand scheme of empire and intrigue. It was, however, cheap at the price to buy a putative United States Senator. Nothing boneheaded about that decision at all. What is a candidate worth? This was Chicago, after all. On the other hand, however, if Barack Obama becomes President of the United States, the sky may be the limit for Nadhmi Auchi.

John A. Shaw is a former senior official of the Defense, State, and Commerce departments, and served on several White House staffs. He is a specialist in international technology transfer and arms sales, and in the economic development of the Middle East.

SBD

In addition, it appears that the entity that ties everyone together in these transactions is Northern Trust Bank which was the bank used to conduct the sale of Obama’s condo, the purchase of the new mansion, and the wiring of funds from Lebanon by Auchi.

Here are a few interestiing quotes from the court documents in the Rezko criminal case.

Through records from Northern Trust Bank, the government has learned there was an approximately $3.5 million wire transfer in April 2007 of which a substantial portion immediately was directed to Rezko’s relatives. More specifically, according to Northern Trust bank records, on April 4, 2007, a bank account (the “MMDA account”) held at Northern Trust by the law firm of Freeborn & Peters (“Freeborn”) received an incoming wire transfer of approximately $3,499,471 from a bank in Beirut, Lebanon. The originator of the wire transfer was identified as General Mediterranean Holdings, SA (“General Mediterranean”).

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 the United States and, it appears, asked certain Illinois government officials to do the same.

November 2005 was just a few months after the Obama purchase of the mansion through Northern Trust.

Rezko’s obtaining money originating in Beirut, Lebanon, is consistent with his continuing ties to the Middle East and overseas travel. Between approximately November 2005 and October 2006, Rezko took multiple trips to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Qatar. In particular, Rezko spent two months in the Middle East prior to his return to the United States in October 2006 after being indicted in the instant case. During that two month trip, Rezko’s family members came to visit him. Rezko’s overseas ties and interests are further confirmed by his role in assisting the Emir of Qatar’s visit to Illinois in 2005. Several of Rezko’s overseas trips included Rezko traveling through, and spending time in, Syria and Lebanon. The United States does not have extradition treaties with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Syria, or Lebanon.

In 2004, Rezko’s phones were already being wiretapped and several of these recording have been released to the public. At the same time, his banking transactions were already coming under scrutiny. THerefore, Fiztpatrick knows exactly how Obama purchased that mansion, and I bet it wasn’t from book sales!!

In June 2004, Aboud Rezko wrote a $25,000 check to Individual U. Prior to the Aboud Rezko check, Individual U received checks from a company affiliated with Individual D; checks that the government has alleged were the proceeds of the charged fraud scheme in the instant case. See 12/21/07 Santiago Proffer at 36. After the June 2004 Aboud Rezko check, until at least May 2006, Rezko-related businesses wrote nearly monthly $25,000 or $30,000 checks to Individual U, for a
total of over $500,000.

If I remember correctly, wasn’t the price Obama paid for that mansion $1,675,000??

On April 5, 2007, a $275,000 check drawn on the client’s fund account [Northern Trust] was issued to CI2. According to CI2, as of March 1, 2006, Rezko owed CI2 approximately $1,675,000 with interest at an annual rate of approximately 20% interest.

CI2 has been cooperating with the government since approximately March 2006. To date, the information that he/she has provided has proven accurate. CI2 has not been provided with any financial incentives for his/her cooperation. Evidence gathered to date indicates that CI2 has been involved in several fraud and other criminal schemes, and has been informed by the government he/she will be charged in relation to his/her criminal activity. The fact ofCI2′s cooperation with the government was not disclosed to Rezko until December 2007.

Did CI2 from the money for the purchase of the Obama mansion and was being reimbursed by Rezko through money transferred from the middle east by Auchi???

SBD

Borrower['s beneficiaries](hand written and initialed) shall not cause or permit the presence, use, disposal, storage, or release of any Hazardous Substances…..

The borrower is The Northern Trust Company as Trustee of the Trust Agreement dated 05/10/2005 and known as Trust No. 10209 and not personally or individually by Peggy Peters Vice President.

Thanks – good point. Hopefully SBD will drop by and provide some answers.

AJStrata