Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign released a new set of documents Saturday in its ongoing effort to try to paint the Illinois Democrat as more open and transparent in his dealings than Sen. Hillary Clinton.
The documents included the finance committee for his 2004 U.S. Senate bid. That list included Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a longtime friend and fundraiser now standing trial in Chicago on federal corruption charges, as well as Rezko’s wife, Rita.
In a real estate transaction that has dogged Obama, he and his wife bought a South Side mansion on the same June 2005 day that Rita Rezko and her husband purchased an adjacent landscaped lot.
The Rezkos were among 117 people who were listed on that committee. The other two lists released to the Tribune included the names of 279 national finance committee members for Obama’s current presidential bid and nearly 550 past and present Senate office interns.
Many of his top fundraisers were already known, but Obama’s campaign had never before agreed to release the entire list. The other records also had never before been provided for review.
The documents were offered a week after Obama met with reporters and editors at the Tribune, as well as those at the Chicago Sun-Times, to discuss his relationship with Rezko.