Flashback: State Senator Obama Paid By Donor Who Got State Grant

Newsmax reports:

As an Illinois state Senator, Barack Obama received more than $100,000 from a company owned by an entrepreneur whom Obama helped to obtain a state grant.

Robert Blackwell Jr., a contributor to Obama’s campaigns, began paying Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer in early 2001 to provide legal advice to his technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange.

At the time, Obama had recently completed his unsuccessful campaign for Congress, and had numerous debts and a law practice he had neglected for a year while campaigning, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Obama had been so strapped for cash that his credit card was initially rejected when he tried to rent a car at the 2000 Democratic convention, Obama disclosed in his book “The Audacity of Hope.”

The monthly payments from EKI supplemented Obama’s $58,000-a-year part-time state Senate salary, and eventually totaled $112,000.

“A few months after he received his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin,” the Times story disclosed.

The angel from Chicago.