Obama Rodham

HERE WE GO AGAIN

CROOKED DEALS AND FAULTY MEMORIES X 2

obama and his rezko ties Day One of two Chiccgo Paper Continues Probe “ Just what legal work -- and how much -- Obama did on those deals is unknown. His campaign staff acknowledges he worked on some of them. But the Rezmar-related work amounted to just five hours over the six years it said Obama was affiliated with the law firm, the staff said in an e-mail in February. Obama, however, was associated with the firm for more than nine years, his staff acknowledged Sunday in an e-mail response to questions submitted March 14 by the Sun-Times. They didn't say what deals he worked on -- or how much work he did. "The senator, relatively inexperienced in this kind of work, was assigned to tasks appropriate for a junior lawyer,'' according to an e-mail from Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. "These tasks would have included reviewing documents, collecting corporate organizational documents, and drafting corporate resolutions.'' In fact, Gibbs wrote, "Senator Obama does not remember having conversations with Tony Rezko about properties that he owned or any specific issues related to those properties.'' ” “ Ms. Clinton and her attorney have stated publicly that the billing records confirm that, as an attorney at the Rose Firm in the mid-80's, she was not significantly involved in the representation of Jim McDougal's savings and loan, Madison Guaranty. According to the Rose records, Hillary Clinton billed Madison for 60 hours of work over a 15 month period. Ms. Clinton's attorney argues that this represents a de minimus amount of work and includes billings for work performed by Rose Finn lawyers working for Hillary Clinton at the time. ''Number of times Hillary Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent in a statement to a House investigating committee: 50. Number of paragraphs in this statement: 42'' Inparticular, investigators zeroed in on the individual billings, including a dozen calls and meetings with Seth Ward, the individual whom regulators determined was a "straw man" in the Castle Grande deal. These contacts occurred during a period of time, including early 1986, that Ward was engaged in efforts to obtain sales commissions from McDougal that would later tip regulators to illegalities at Castle Grande. ”