CHICAGO — As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama once arranged for a $200,000 grant to jump-start an urban venture capital fund for a nonprofit group run by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The state grant was the sort of faith-based initiative now at the center of a rift between Jackson and Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. . . . The grant proposal from CEF, an offshoot of Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, declared that the “centerpiece” of its work would be creation of a venture fund for private equity investment on the South Side and in adjacent suburbs. But the investment pool, intended to stimulate job growth, was never launched. CEF spent much of its grant on consultants, including a firm tied to former national Democratic Party chief David Wilhelm. Jackson did not respond to requests for comment. Obama arranged the CEF grant before revelations in 2001 that Jackson had a child with CEF’s onetime executive director. There is no connection between the grant and a sizable payment that the CEF made to Jackson’s former mistress upon her departure. Obama told the Tribune last year that he lacked the resources as a state lawmaker to vet the merits of grant requests and that almost every nonprofit group that asked him for state money got it. “It was a pretty wide-open process,” he said.
How’s that for oversight? You’re a “non-profit?” Approved!
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