Many have linked to this item in the Chicago Tribune’s coverage (and this item in the Sun-Times coverage) of the Rezko trial, pointing out that “Stuart Levine, the prosecution’s star witness, said he and Obama were at a party Rezko threw at his Wilmette mansion on April 3, 2004, for Nadhmi Auchi, a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who Rezko was trying to get to invest in a South Loop real-estate development.”

But we need to get a sense of why it’s important that we’re now hearing that Obama attended this party.

The first issue is the ties, if any, between Auchi and Obama. Back in February, the line from Team Obama was that these two never met, or at least Obama didn’t recall it:

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Mr Obama, told The Times: “The bottom line is Obama does not recall ever meeting him [Mr Auchi].”

It’s possible that Obama could attend a party for Auchi at Rezko’s house and never encounter Auchi. But it seems a little strange that Auchi wouldn’t encounter a young rising star in Chicago politics running for the Senate, and that Obama would never encounter the man who was the purpose of the party.

The second issue is whether any money from Auchi helped the Rezko-Obama simultaneous house-and-adjoining lot purchase. Obama couldn’t afford both, and Rezko bought the lot; Obama later purchased part of the lot from Rezko.

The third is who Auchi is. From that London Times article:

Mr Auchi was convicted of corruption, given a suspended sentence and fined £1.4 million in France in 2003 for his part in the Elf affair, described as the biggest political and corporate scandal in post-war Europe. He, in a statement from his media lawyers, claims he is appealing against the sentence.
Mr Auchi founded his Luxembourg-based General Mediterranean Holding (GMH) in 1979, a year before he left Iraq. He says that he did business with his native country when it was considered a friend of the West but ceased to trade with the late Saddam Hussein’s regime once sanctions were imposed after the invasion of Kuwait….
Both Mr Auchi and Mr Obama say they have no memory of meeting each other. But, according to a source, the two may have had a brief encounter at the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago where Mr Auchi’s visit was being honoured with a dinner attended by the Governor when Mr Obama, coincidentally in the hotel, dropped in.
An aide to Mr Obama said he did attend an event at the Four Seasons at which Mr Rezko was present but does not remember meeting Mr Auchi. “He shook a lot of hands and met a lot of people,” the aide said. “We do not remember individual people.”

Others, however, have suggested much more sinister ties around Auchi:

“The name Nadhmi Auchi was just another name for Saddam’s intelligence service, or so we thought,” said Nibras Kazimi, a former Iraqi dissident who is now a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C..

A Chicago politician is almost guaranteed to be connected to some strange characters, but if all of this pans out, a tie to Saddam’s intelligence service would be a new one…