Monday, May 14, 2012

Michelle Obama's Former Boss Offered $150,000 Bribe To Silence Rev. Wright According To Book's Author

Obama playing golf with Dr. Eric Whitaker

The NY Post reported over the weekend a claim by Rev. Jeremiah Wright that he was offered a $150,000 bribe by a member of Obama's 2008 presidential campaign to silence him until the election was over. Edward Klein, author of "The Amateur", claims that Dr. Eric Whitaker, Vice-President of the University of Chicago Medical Center, is the close Obama campaign associate and friend who offered Wright the bribe. Dr. Whitaker helped Michelle Obama land her $316,000 a year no work, no show job with the hospital to help supplement the Obama household income when Barack entered politics. From the Daily Caller:
In an email, Klein said Whitaker had offered Wright $150,000 “if he would shut-up and not criticize Obama anymore.” When Wright refused Whitaker’s offer, Klein said Obama himself personally met with Wright, which supposedly took place after Obama’s March 18, 2008 “race speech,” confirmed by both Wright’s word and the U.S. Secret Service logs.
Whitaker, who attended Harvard Graduate School in the early 1990s with Obama, was known for having been a proponent of Obama’s health care legislation.
Klein also said Wright told him he “made it comfortable” for Obama to accept Christianity without having renounce his “Islamic background,” which Klein said he has on tape.
Dr. Whitaker is no stranger to Illinois political corruption. Obama and convicted political fixer Tony Rezko teamed up to help Whitaker land the job as Illinois' Public Health Director under former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Obama and Rezko also played a key role in the appointment of individuals by Blagojevich to the Health Facilities Planning Board and the Illinois Teachers Retirement System Board, which were at the center of the former governor's public corruption trial. Businesses seeking to do business before the boards were shaken down for millions of dollars using board appointees like Stuart Levine backed by Obama and Rezko.

Whitaker was the point of contact for the Blagojevich administration when a deputy governor working for the Governor called Obama's campaign and asked who spoke for Obama concerning the naming of his replacement to the Senate. Whitaker, according to a self-serving report prepared by the Obama campaign about the talks it had with Blagojevich about the Senate appointment, told the governor's staff that nobody spoke for Obama because he had no desire to dictate his replacement. Nonetheless, Obama did have at least one telephone conversation with Blagojevich that was recorded by the FBI discussing the Senate seat appointment, but the government successfully blocked the release of that and other recordings that were supposedly damaging to Obama. The Daily Caller notes that a program Whitaker administers at the University of Chicago Medical Center received a questionable $5.9 million grant from the Department of Health & Human Services.

Don't expect U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the bribe Wright alleges that Whitaker offered him. Fitzgerald has suppressed all evidence in the possession of his office that implicates Obama and his 2008 presidential campaign in criminal wrongdoing, particularly evidence he has that Obama took bribes from political fixer Tony Rezko.

6 comments:

CircleCityScribe said...

"Corruption is as corruption does."

--The Democrat Machine

marksmall2001 said...

I do not mean to split hairs, but in our profession, words are important. A "bribe" is a private payment to a public official for a benefit. If there are no facts other than those you set forth, any money paid by a private individual to a private individual would not be a "bribe." Perhaps the payment is nixious, but not illegal---again, without more facts than related in your blog. This is less splitting of hair (stylish as it was in that YouTube viral in 2008) as we see at present in the John Edwards trial.

Gary R. Welsh said...

For shorthand, the media has repeatedly referred to the charges against John Edwards as bribery. He is actually charged with federal campaign law violations. Essentially, the charges boil down to raising and spending money for the candidate for a purpose other than his election.

Gary R. Welsh said...

I should add that Edwards' lawyers contend that there is no basis for the criminal charges based on federal campaign law violations. It's a test case by the Obama Justice Department--a test not likely to be repeated by it against Obama.

Cato said...

They just got the federal salary database up and running.

http://php.app.com/fed_employees11/search.php

Since I don't know a lot of federal employees, I fired Jennifer Wagner in there for 2009.

WAGNER, JENNIFER A DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY District of Columbia District of Columbia WASHINGTON PUBLIC AFFAIRS GS 13 $86,927 $0

That's some seriously nice cash, far better than almost anyone makes in Indianapolis.

How do you get one of these fed jobs? It seems like only an idiot would take an insecure and long-hours private sector job when there's this type of cash waiting in the federal government.

Marycatherine Barton said...

It is no wonder that those in the know call DC the District of Criminals. Wayne Madsen has announced the title of his forthcoming book, THE MANUFACTURING OF A PRESIDENT: THE CIA'S INSERTION OF BARACK h. OBAMA INTO THE WHITE HOUSE.