Photo Surfaces Showing Sen. Clinton Posing With Chicago Landlord Rezko
A photograph has surfaced that purports to show Hillary Clinton posing with Bill Clinton and Chicago landlord Tony Rezko.
The unsourced photo appeared Friday morning on DrudgeReport.com.
In a televised debate earlier this week, Hillary Clinton attacked Barack Obama in a heated exchange for engaging in a land deal with Rezko while Obama was in the Illinois legislature. Obama has severed ties with the businessman, who supported Obama’s campaigns earlier in his career.
Rezko is awaiting trial next month on federal corruption charges. He was indicted on fraud, attempted extortion and money laundering counts for allegedly plotting to get campaign money and payoffs from firms seeking to do business before two state boards.
Once that trial is behind him, the 53-year-old Rezko faces a separate federal charge of swindling the General Electric Capital Corp. out of $10 million in connection with the sale of pizza restaurants.
Clinton was confronted with the photo of her with Rezko during an interview on NBC News Friday.
She said she didn’t know the man, adding, “I probably have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures. … I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door. I don’t have a 17-year-relationship with him,” alluding to Obama’s ties to Rezko.
Clinton — who was forced to sever ties with major Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu after it became known that Hsu was evading fraud charges — was asked if it was fair to attack Obama, knowing that Rezko had previously contributed to the Democratic party, and it’s impossible to completely vet all political contacts.
“There’s a big difference between standing somewhere taking a picture with someone you don’t know and haven’t seen since and having a relationship that, you know, the newspapers in Chicago have been exploring,” Clinton said.
Obama’s campaign reacted by claiming the photo proves Rezko’s prominent fundraising role for politicians across the board.
“The photo reflects the fact that Mr. Rezko was clearly involved in a wide range of fund raising for both Democrats and Republicans,” the campaign said in an initial statement.
Obama adviser David Axelrod chimed in, “If they are standing there beaming with Tony Rezko it means they knew who Tony Rezko was. He was a player, a prominent figure raising money and about town.”
Clinton’s campaign issued a statement via e-mail later Friday, with a number of links to Internet media sources that document Obama’s ties to Rezko.
“Tony Rezko has never contributed a dime to Hilary or Bill Clinton. They have no relationship with Tony Rezko,” Clinton spokesman Phil singer said. He also included a link to the political money-tracking site OpenSecrets.org, which indicates Rezko has not directly contributed to Clinton, at least as far back as 1990.
Singer then pointed to a number of stories describing Obama’s financial and political relationship with Rezko.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
She conveniently side stepped the Hsu question, but I’d honestly be interested in an answer. I agree we should further inquire into Obama’ relationship with Rezko. While doing so, however, I believe we should be inquire into Clinton’s relationships with Norman Hsu, Abdul Rahman Jinnah, William Danielczyk, and the T.R.O., all of whom proved to have illegal ties and all of whom contributed “bundled contributions” to her campaign. I’d also be interested in some sort of real and honest explanation of that picture of her and her husband with Rezko, in which he has his arms around them both (clearly this isn’t just some “nameless, faceless person we took a picture with”). As long as we’re going for full disclosure of our candidates involvement with possibly corrupt donors, do let’s be thorough, shall we?
Rezko looks like the guy in the mugshot related to Vince Foster’s death…
Watch Daytona 500…
cool article, thanks so much. Good writing, going to read more……
How many clinton’s do you need to remove OBAMA.
Go OBAMA!!
she can’t run her own house, how in the world can she run the white house. she sure can lie and bs alout. she and he wouldnt know the truth if it fell on them. she and he for the dems. i
same old stuff when they were in the white house , he denied anything to dod with the intern and what else did he lie about wer will know these two real well if and when the papers are released from the Clinton massage parlor . They owe to many foriiegn concerns to be faithful to this country , lets put someone in the white house that would not have this baggage to tote along with them .
It is just hard to say much about these candidates, but they are saying a quite a bit about themselves.
i left a good comment but fox must not have thought it appropriate it now doesnt show up……
fox wants to spin their way only