‘Ongoing embarrassment’: RNC vice chair pressured by GOP to step down over Rezko ties

Some Illinois Republicans want the the vice chairman of the Republican National Convention, Bob Kjellander, out of the party. Kjellander will be helping to plan the convention in St. Paul this September — that is, if he doesn’t get swept up in a burgeoning and bipartisan extortion,  money-laundering and fraud scandal currently rocking Illinois politics.

Kjellander is closely connected to Tony Rezko, who is currently being tried on charges he defrauded businesses working with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System Board and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. Kjellander represented the much-criticized Carlyle Group in a deal to secure that group the ITRSB pension fund. That deal netted Kjellander $4.5 million from the Carlyle group, a payment that raised eyebrows in Illinois, resulting in both an investigation and legislation targeting the type of deal Kjellander made.

In the Rezko trial, Kjellander was named as having “received $809,000 in consulting fees for the 2003 sale of state bonds, much of which prosecutors believe was funneled through a Rezko associate to Rezko assignees.” And those assignees seem to have given the funds back to Rezko. “Prosecutors say he then gave $600,000 of it to Rezko crony Joseph Aramanda, who then distributed $450,000 of it to four people, many of whom gave much of the money back to Rezko.”

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve called the scheme an “unnecessary diversion,” adding it could itself become a “mini-trial.”

Continued: Click “Read more”Because of these multiple deals that have raised ethical and legal questions, some in Illinois’ Republican party have called for Kjellander’s ouster.

Doug Ibendahl, the former general counsel of the Illinois Republican Party and the co-founder of the Republican Young Professionals, has been calling on the Illinois Republican Party to force Kjellander out. Ibendahl is part of the Family Taxpayers Network, an economic and social conservative group that backed Alan Keyes in his failed Senate race against Barack Obama.

“Kjellander’s an ongoing embarrassment for the entire Republican Party, but now he’s personally embarrassed the President of the United States,” wrote Ibendahl. Kjellander’s embarrassment of the president stems from his close connections to the White House. As a member of the Carlyle Group, he is also close friends with former longtime Bush adviser Karl Rove and brought Rezko to the White House for a party in 2003.

“Nearly every other Republican leader in Illinois has publicly called for Kjellander to resign as our Republican National Committeeman… But still our State Party Chairman Andy McKenna, Jr. does nothing,” wrote Ibendahl.

And bloggers have been chiming in as well. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — the GOP needs to totally dump Bob Kjellander from any official position,” said Anne Leary of the Backyard Conservative. “We need to totally clean house so we can move on — in Illinois as well as nationally.”

Kjellander hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing. But his name is certainly connected to people who have. Will he be able to hold on to his job planning the convention? Time will tell.