Jury hears Rezko calls: GOP Insiders Involved

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

For the first time in Tony Rezko's three-week-old corruption trial, jurors on Friday heard Rezko's own voice on secretly recorded telephone calls -- including a chat in which Rezko seems to be giving orders about how to fix votes on multimillion-dollar hospital construction projects.

The conversations, secretly recorded by the FBI in 2004, between Rezko and star prosecution witness Stuart P. Levine, preceded more bombshell testimony by Levine. He told jurors he effectively was given a quid pro quo by Republican insiders Robert Kjellander and William Cellini for pushing through a $150 million state investment deal in 2002 for one of their lobbying clients, the Carlyle Group.

The Republicans are deeply involved in the Tony Rezko operation.