Obama's pick to lead Commerce: A 'Chicago Fat Cat'?

Michelle Malkin digs in with research on President Obama's rumored pick to lead the Department of Commerce:

Will President Obama really nominate billionaire Chicago gal pal Penny Pritzker to head his Commerce Department? “It’s a done deal,” according to a White House source close to the Chicago Sun Times. As further confirmation, Pritzkerresigned abruptly from the Windy City’s school board late last week. The crony fix seems to be in.

Taxpayers, beware. Pritzker is a deep-pocketed doyenne with a family history of dodging taxes — or siphoning them away from the public for her own family’s gargantuan private gain. If you want to see how she’ll oversee a $10 billion government agency, look at her own wealth redistribution record.

Most notoriously, Pritzker headed up subprime lender Superior Bank. Even after it went under in 2001 and left 1,400 mostly poor and minority customers destitute, Pritzker was pushing to expand its toxic subprime loan business. As I’ve reported previously, Pritzker and her family escaped accountability by forking over a discounted $460 million settlement over 15 years after the bank collapsed.

One of the Obamas’ oldest Chicago friends and an intimate confidante of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Pritzker served as a top national finance chairwoman and bundler for the 2008 presidential campaign. She is an heir to the Hyatt Hotel and Pritzker family fortunes. According to Forbes, her grandfather and his sons also created the industrial conglomerate Marmon Holdings, which the family sold to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for $4.5 billion.

Continue reading...