Sen. Barack Obama, meet your new neighbors

CLOUT CORNER: Inside the halls of power

Barack Obama has new neighbors-to-be -- John and Marjorie Poulos.

The Pouloses bought the lot next door to Obama's much-talked-about Kenwood mansion last month.

Sale price: $675,000 -- far below the $1.5 million Michael Sreenan was asking when he put it on the market last fall. Sreenan, who was a lawyer for indicted former Obama fund-raiser Tony Rezko, bought the land from Rezko's wife, Rita, in December 2006 for $575,000.

"We have not met the senator,'' says John Poulos, a lawyer who already lives in the neighborhood.

He says he and his wife, a grad student at the University of Chicago, plan to build a single-family home on the land. They're looking for a contractor.

The Obama property has been a headache for the presidential hopeful. A quick refresher: Obama and Rezko bought the side-by-side properties in June 2005. Obama paid $1.65 million for the house, $300,000 below asking price. Rezko paid full price for the land -- $625,000. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko $104,500 for one-sixth of the lot. Obama later apologized for having dealings with Rezko at a time it was known he was under investigation.

Tim Novak

Allegations raised in the Rezko corruption trial that prominent Republicans Karl Rove and Robert Kjellander tried to pull strings to oust U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald from his Chicago post have drawn the attention of a prominent member of Congress -- House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.).

"The committee has heard substantial and credible allegations that [Rove] played a significant role in the firing of United States attorneys and allegations of selective prosecution," says Conyers, adding that the allegations leveled "in Chicago only add to those troubling questions," and "the committee intends to investigate the facts and circumstances" surrounding them.

Kjellander and Rove have denied the allegations regarding Fitzgerald. Former Blagojevich administration official Ali Ata could testify about them today during Rezko's trial.

Chris Fusco