Barack Obama is saying the Washington Post mischaracterized his words in an interview on the senator’s relationship with his long-time and indicted friend, Tony Rezko:

The Washington Post story of Dec. 16, 2006 said, “Obama said he was unaware of Rezko’s brewing troubles in 2005.” After we included the Washington Post account in our story about Rezko and Obama today, Obama’s campaign staff sent what it said was the full transcript of the senator’s exchange with the Washington Post reporter, Peter Slevin. Slevin: You must have been aware he was under investigation, no? Obama: Well, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve known him for 20 years — well, let me make sure I’m not exaggerating here, 1991, so, 15 years, I’ve known him for 15 years. He had never asked me to do anything, had never behaved in any untoward way with me. And, the, you know, I wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about these various issues that he was involved with, but as I’ve said before, there’s no doubt that I should have seen some red flags in terms of me purchasing a piece of property from him. Again, my focus was just making sure that the purchase itself met ethical guidelines, but there’s no doubt that the optics of it I think – partly – well, no, I’ll just stick to that, there’s no doubt I should have been more attuned to it.