A Rezko-Clinton Connection?

January 25, 2008, 1:28 pm

A Rezko-Clinton Connection?

By Christopher Drew



A photograph of Antoin Rezko, an indicted Chicago businessman, standing between Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, which surfaced on NBC’s “Today” show on Friday, might have been taken at a 1997 fund-raiser in Chicago for former United States Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, political insiders say.

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“I don’t know the man,” Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Lauer. “I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door. I don’t have a 17-year relationship with him.”

She added: “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 the newspapers in Chicago have been exploring.”

According to the 1997 story in the Chicago Tribune, both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton attended the fund-raiser for Senator Moseley-Braun on June 25, 1997. And the next day, records show, one of Mr. Rezko’s companies donated $10,000 to a state Democratic party organization that was supporting Ms. Moseley-Braun, records show.

There was no immediate way to know for sure if that is when the picture was taken. But it is the best bet right now among political insiders familiar with Mr. Rezko. Mrs. Clinton attended another fundraiser for Ms. Moseley-Braun in October 1998, but President Clinton was not there.

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