On the April 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle claimed that an April 23 Chicago Sun-Times article “alleged [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] did legal work for [Chicago Democratic fundraiser Antoin] Rezko that enabled him [Rezko] to get $43 million in government funding to rehab 15 buildings.” In fact, the Sun-Times reported that while Obama worked at the law firm that helped Rezko's company, Rezmar, secure the government funding, his role in the Rezmar deals is “unclear,” and that Obama's campaign said Obama worked only five hours on Rezmar-related deals. “Senator Obama did not directly represent Mr. Rezko or his firms,” according to an email from Obama's staff that the Sun-Times quoted. “He did represent on a very limited basis ventures in which Mr. Rezko's entities participated along with others.”

Angle also reported: “Rezko's the same man whose wife bought the lot next door to Obama's house on the same day the senator bought his home, then later sold half that lot to Obama for 1/3 its original value.” A December 17, 2006, Washington Post article, however, cited an Obama spokesman in reporting that Obama purchased one-sixth of Rezko's lot and paid Rezko more than double its appraised value because “Obama considered it fair to pay one-sixth of the original price for one-sixth of the lot.”

As Media Matters for America has documented, several media outlets have cast the Obama-Rezko land deal as a “scandal,” despite the complete absence of evidence of impropriety or allegation of wrongdoing.

From the April 24 edition of Special Report:

ANGLE: One source intimately familiar with Rezko's business dealings told Fox that many of the newspaper allegations are grossly inaccurate but also called Rezko one of the greatest con artists in the history of the state. The Sun-Times alleged that when the housing projects weren't profitable, Rezko walked away from many of them, selling to not-for-profit groups, or letting them go into foreclosure after Rezko collected millions in development fees and tax breaks.

That prompted the kind of headlines no presidential candidate wants to see.

OBAMA [video clip]: -- used to suggest somehow that you're responsible for a whole bunch of failing housing throughout the city.

ANGLE: The paper alleged Obama did legal work for Rezko that enabled him to get $43 million in government funding to rehab 15 buildings. But Senator Obama said that is not true.

OBAMA [video clip]: My law firm was representing the non-for-profit partner, where there's no allegations that they did anything wrong. They were simply trying to develop non-for-profit housing in the district.

The April 23 Sun-Times article, however, made no such allegation:

Obama role unclear

Just what legal work -- and how much -- Obama did on those deals is unknown. His campaign staff acknowledges he worked on some of them. But the Rezmar-related work amounted to just five hours over the six years it said Obama was affiliated with the law firm, the staff said in an e-mail in February.

Obama, however, was associated with the firm for more than nine years, his staff acknowledged Sunday in an e-mail response to questions submitted March 14 by the Sun-Times. They didn't say what deals he worked on -- or how much work he did.

“The senator, relatively inexperienced in this kind of work, was assigned to tasks appropriate for a junior lawyer,'' according to an e-mail from Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. ”These tasks would have included reviewing documents, collecting corporate organizational documents, and drafting corporate resolutions.''

In fact, Gibbs wrote, “Senator Obama does not remember having conversations with Tony Rezko about properties that he owned or any specific issues related to those properties.''

[...]

Obama works on Rezmar deals

Obama spent the next eight years serving in the Illinois Senate and continued to work for the Davis law firm.

Through its partnerships, Rezmar remained a client of the firm, according to ethics statements Obama filed while a state senator.

[Law firm top partner Allison S.] Davis said he didn't remember Obama working on the Rezmar projects.

”I don't recall Barack having any involvement in real estate transactions,'' Davis said. “Barack was a litigator. His area of focus was litigation, class-action suits.''

But Obama did legal work on real estate deals while at Davis' firm, according to biographical information he submitted to the Sun-Times in 1998. Obama specialized ”in civil rights litigation, real estate financing, acquisition, construction and/or redevelopment of low-and moderate income housing,'' according to his “biographical sketch.”

And he did legal work on Rezko's deals, according to an e-mail his presidential campaign staff sent the Sun-Times on Feb. 16, in response to earlier inquiries. The staff didn't specify which Rezmar projects Obama worked on, or his role. But it drew a distinction between working for Rezko and working on projects involving his company.

“Senator Obama did not directly represent Mr. Rezko or his firms. He did represent on a very limited basis ventures in which Mr. Rezko's entities participated along with others,'' according to the e-mail from Obama's staff.

Angle went on to report:

ANGLE: But aside from Obama's involvement, or lack of it, in these matters, he and Rezko are said by many in Chicago to be close friends. Rezko's the same man whose wife bought the lot next door to Obama's house on the same day the senator bought his home, then later sold half that lot to Obama for 1/3 its original value.

However, as the Post reported on December 17, 2006:

Obama said Rezko, who knows the neighborhood, was one of several people he called for advice on the real estate market. Rezko told him he knew the developer who renovated the house. In a later conversation, Rezko said he intended to buy the empty lot and build on it.

Later, the Obamas bought a 10-foot-by-150-foot piece of the lot for $104,500. An appraisal put the value of the strip at $40,500, a spokesman said, but Obama considered it fair to pay one-sixth of the original price for one-sixth of the lot.

”It wasn't something we needed to have," Obama said. “It was something I thought would be nice, if it worked economically for him.”