Obama Shilled For Granny Grifter

As Flying Debris pointed out earlier today the Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was involved in an alleged mortgage fraud five years ago. Mr. Giannoulias' family bank the Broadway Bank in Chicago made a $1 million loan to an 83 year-old woman who could not fill out the loan form and who was brought to the bank by two felons and another person. One of those men had twice been convicted of bank fraud. Mr. Giannoulias admits that he knew that the felons were involved and that in his own words "I'm not sure it would be a prudent loan." Well sure, the loan payments were $9,845 per month while the bank's own loan documents show that Ms. Billings had an income of about $10,000 per month. So thats great, when he was working at the family bank he saw the collateral of property in the 1100 block of West Washington St., just west of the traditional Greektown. However when on the witness stand Mr. Giannoulias had a revelation, hey maybe $165 per month is not reasonable for an 83 year-old woman to live on.

Mr. Giannoulias is currently the State Treasurer here in Illinois thanks to the effort of one Barack Hussein Obama, yep that guy who's running for President. Senator Obama (D-IL), spent considerable energy helping the campaign of Mr. Giannoulias, both during the primaries and the general election. This scandal was known during that time. The commenter on this post, an alleged North Side Serf pretty much summed it up nineteen months ago:

Mr. G is the personal pet, sorry, "candidate", of rock star senator Barak Obama. You know, Mr. Clean, voice of a new generation, blah, blah. There is NO WAY Obama, scion of Ricahrd II's Chicago dynasty and beloved of the patroage army that toils there, is clean of the filth of Chicago and Illinois politics, among the most corrupt in the nation. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Chicago Tribune had an interesting observation of Mr. Giannoulias, "(h)e appeared largely unruffled during about three hours of questioning, though he frequently could not remember details, often repeating, "Again, that was five years ago." Let me get this straight, the guy is in his first month of a new job at the family bank, he has a strong academic and athletic background (Boston U Cum Laude, Basketball), one would hope that this loan was an unusual loan, what with the bank fraud convictions, and the size of the loan at a bank that descries itself as a "Community Bank". Add to all of that, the public has known about this for some time so Mr Giannoulias has known about this brewing scandal for years and he still can't remember. I just don't buy the whole "I Know Nothing!" line that Mr. Giannoulias has been using in court, the guy isn't an idiot. Think about your first months or even years in different jobs, it's the odd things that stand out, like felons and 83 year-old ladies.

So what did Sen.Obama see in Mr Giannoulias? Well they both play basketball and they both excelled at universities in Boston. I will confess that I always figured that it was money, and that likely played a part. Fair or unfair that is the life of a politician. I will also state that during the 2006 election I found those Obama/Giannoulias commercials to be odd, after all we knew a lot about Giannoulias' Granny-Gate by that time; so what the heck was our Senator doing pushing this guy?

Welcome MyDD readers, this post from early January has a list of Obama posts on Flying Debris. Ms. Hu is correct, there is more out there, my list of posts is long and misses at least two subsequent posts and I'm not a professional.