Rezko trial hasn't harmed Obama -- yet

Senator should be prepared for guilty verdict, sealed testimony

The evidence is complete in the Tony Rezko trial, and while I'd rather hear the closing arguments before predicting a verdict, one outcome is already clear:

Sen. Barack Obama and his presidential ambitions survived the trial relatively unscathed.

Obama's name rarely came up in court during the two months since lawyers first began picking a jury for the Rezko case, depriving his political opponents of any fresh ammunition.

Having been among those who fanned the flames of expectation before the trial started, it seems incumbent upon me to point out now that it produced no real embarrassing revelations about Obama -- unless you count testimony about Obama's previously undisclosed attendance at a party Rezko threw at his home for controversial Iraqi-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi.

While the Auchi angle remains an intriguing area of inquiry for the future, I don't think just placing Obama at the party does much at this point to advance the larger story of Obama's relationship with Rezko.

This is not in any way to suggest Obama is off the hook for his old fund-raiser, friend and neighbor-of-sorts, if Rezko's odd purchase of the vacant lot next door to Obama's home counts as being a neighbor.

Rezko is still every bit as much a problem for Obama as when this trial started in early March, just not more so, which seemed the stronger possibility back then.

If Rezko is eventually found guilty, as is always the most likely outcome of a major federal trial, that would still create a big political problem for Obama, even if it's a much more serious problem for Gov. Blagojevich.

In the first place, Obama would have to play the renunciation game again, having failed to completely turn against Rezko the last time he was given an opportunity to do so.

Back on March 14 when Obama visited the Sun-Times' editorial board to put to rest lingering questions about their dealings, Obama was asked if he still considered Rezko a friend.

"Yes," he answered, "with the caveat that, obviously, if it turns out the allegations are true, then he's not who I thought he was. And I'd be very disappointed with that."

Obama even said he was "saddened" for Rezko and his family.

At that very same interview, though, Obama was also still deferential to his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and we know how quickly that changed.

Obama's advisers might want to start working up some stronger language now, unless he just wants to recycle the "outrageous . . . appalling . . . offensive . . . inexcusable" that he used when he set Wright adrift last week.

Obama has never been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with the Rezko trial, but prosecutors alleged in pretrial filings that Obama's Senate campaign had been the recipient of straw donations from Rezko business associates on Rezko's behalf. During the trial, however, they did not elicit that testimony.

Unless I missed something, I believe all the references to Obama during the trial were brought out by Rezko's defense team.

In his opening statement to the jury, Rezko lawyer Joseph Duffy noted Rezko had been a fund-raiser for Obama and had met him while trying to recruit him for a job out of law school.

But even that reference was muted because it was mentioned in the context of Rezko raising money for a host of politicians, including President Bush, former Gov. Jim Edgar and the late Mayor Harold Washington.

It was also Duffy, during his cross-examination of star prosecution witness Stuart Levine, who brought out Obama's attendance at the party for Auchi, who is appealing a fraud conviction in France and for at least a period of time was denied entry to the U.S.

Rezko was working on a major business deal with Auchi to purchase a 62-acre site south of the Loop. Obama says he has no recollection of being at the April 2004 party at Rezko's Wilmette mansion, which came just a few weeks after he won the Democratic primary. And Auchi has said through a spokesman he does not recall meeting Obama.

Add one more caveat to my assertion that the Rezko trial has done Obama no harm.

Given the overly-secretive way that U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve runs her trials, there always exists the possibility that she has made and sealed some yet-to-be-revealed ruling that kept Obama-related testimony out of the trial. Sooner or later, that could still come out.