Brian Ross from ABC News reports:
Obama Helped Supporters Get Millions in Illinois State Business
In a speech to the Urban League last July, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., boasted of his efforts in 2001 to help a handful of African American-owned investment firms in Chicago get a larger share of business with Illinois state pension funds. “And in six months, they got about a half-billion dollars’ worth of business simply on their excellence,” Obama said.
What he did not say in his speech was that the owner of one of the investment firms, John Rogers of Ariel Capital, is a principal campaign fundraiser. Nor did he reveal that employees of the firms he helped have since contributed to or helped to raise more than $765,000 for his campaigns, according to campaign documents. Nor did he mention that two of the firms have allowed him to use their private jets. Nor did he mention that two of the firms have since been dismissed by the state pension fund for “underperformance.”