When Obama Began Strangling the Republic “By the Book”

By John Kass

July 23, 2025

It was a cold Sunday morning in Chicago in February 2003—I was driving over to the paper, and had a week’s worth or columns to plan—when I stopped in front of the E2 nightclub. Outside there was a police blockade because 21 young people had been killed, but the cops knew me and waved me through.

On the sidewalk awkwardly alone, his hands jammed into the pockets of a navy-blue dress coat, was a soon-to-be well known Chicago Democrat:

Barack Obama.

The E2 was a black bougie hangout where 21 young people were crushed to death in a dark stairway that had been locked in violation of building codes. There had been a court order to close off the upper area but there was revenue to be had. So, it was kept open.

They had held fundraisers for Obama. The owners were Chicago Way friends of his, as was the oily bagman, Tony Rezko.

And I got a brief look into the cold emptiness of his soul.

Obama is all up in the news now, named in a “criminal information” sent by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to the U.S. Justice Department for manufacturing treasonous official intelligence to portray President Donald Trump as a tool of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Naturally, the Deep State rats are scurrying and screeching to distract the people because it is all so serious, the Deep State having taken the republic from them right before their very eyes.

Naturally, the Democrats are now raving and raging to protect Obama, much as they screamed “racism” at anyone who dared mention Obama’s corrupt political bagman and imprisoned groundskeeper Tony Rezko.

This latest drama also involves Obama’s famous White House Oval Office meeting shortly after Trump shocked the Democrat world.

“On Jan. 5, 2017, with Obama World in panic after Trump shocked the political establishment by defeating Hillary Clinton for the presidency, Obama convened a White House meeting of his Deep State commanders. They had to stop Trump. John Brennan of Obama’s CIA was at that meeting, and then Vice President Biden. James Comey, then of the FBI, was there, as were national security adviser Susan Rice (who lied for the Obama White House about the Benghazi disaster) and other intelligence bosses.

What followed?

Chaos.

And out of that flowed the contrived Russia Collusion hoax that served the left wing corporate media as Pulitzer Prize vehicles for the Washington Post and New York Times, the Trump impeachments, the legacy media and the Democrat Party blackout of the Hunter Biden Laptop from Hell story that was blotted from the internet by the Obama Deep State in concert with Twitter and Facebook. And those shameless 51 American intelligence experts who insisted, falsely that the Hunter Biden laptop bore “all the hallmarks” of a Russian disinformation operation.

It’s all coming out now, isn’t it? The Deep State rats scurrying for cover, the terriers scratching at the rat holes.

On Tuesday, President Trump called on the Justice Department  to prosecute former President Barack Obama for allegedly ordering an assessment that Russia meddled to help him with the 2016 election.

At that so-called secret “by the book” meeting in the Oval Office, with Obama ordering his Deep State intelligence agencies to manufacture intel to cripple President Trump? Is he so shallow and narcissistic as to ignore the damage he causes to the republic as his spies and counterspies squeeze the civic life out of America? Yes.

He kills the republic he hates. And the institutional left that serves Obama, the universities and the broken corporate media guard Obama’s back.

“After what they did to me, whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people. Obama has been caught directly,” Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office. “If you look at those papers, they have them stone cold, and it was President Obama… the leader of the gang was President Obama, Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him?”

Oh, one more thing about the phenomenon of Obama’s Deep State coup derailing the Trump administration:

You need the media. Without the media, it won’t work. But in Obama’s case, he had the American corporate news media eating from the palm of his hand.

As my younger brother Nicholas Kass explained in the American Conservative magazine before he cancelled his retirement and returned to government service–this time as acting Chairman of National Intelligence Council–a Deep States requires constant support from the media.

 

Trump withstood constant attack that would break most other men. It was an attack of the institutional insurrectionists who would destroy Trump and step on the Constitution to weaken and stop him. The left has already shot Trump once and tried to kill him twice. The Obamas, the Clintons have too much to lose.

But according to Susan Rice–in a cover her behind email written from the White House even as Trump was being sworn in as president–she insisted that everything in that Oval Office meeting was done “by the book. ”

Who talks like that unless it’s some grifter covering their behind?

She escaped further scrutiny, because, well, she was in the service of Obama. And she still is his servant. And she still covers his behind.

Certainly, Citizen Barack Obama understood how federal power could be abused as he lectured on the Constitution at the University of Chicago, not too far from where Chicago has given him priceless lakefront land—for his great temple.

Did President Obama worry about the republic when he convened that secret White House meeting on Jan. 5, 2017, just as Trump was about to take control?

No.

Years earlier, long before that “by the book” meeting in the White House, with those 21 black kids trampled to death in the illegally locked stairwell, Obama was exposing his soul on a cold streetcorner in Chicago.

There was nothing there.

I didn’t take notes. But I did ask him what he was doing. He pulled his hands from his pockets, saying he was torn up inside about the people who died. And he made helpless gestures with those thin hands of his.

“The owners are friends of mine,” he said of co-owners Calvin Hollins Jr. and Dwain Kyles, who escaped prison time in a deal with Emanuel administration attorneys and received community service. Emanuel had not yet served as Obama’s chief-of-staff and would later use that service as a springboard to become mayor of Chicago.

Obama did not have his mouthpieces. Emanuel wasn’t there. Neither was his puppet master David Axelrod. He was alone.

It seemed to me he was searching for some symbolism to build an escape ladder for another of his jazzy riffs. But his team wasn’t there. All of Chicago was torn up by the needless deaths of the young Chicagoans, the locked exits, that horrific trampling in the dark stairway. But butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.   He looked like a guy who was thinking about making a speech but didn’t have anything to say.

Across the street, TV news crews were gesturing at us, complaining to the cops about their access. They hadn’t yet recognized the still relatively unknown Obama, but they were coming over, angry.

So, I said something like: “Barack, in a few seconds they’ll walk over here and put a camera in your face and ask why you’re here. Do you want that now?

No, he said, sensing political danger.

“If I were you, I’d take off,” I said.

Yeah, he said, thanks. He took off.

The hollow man put his thin hands back into his pockets. And he loped away.

to be continued…

 

-30-

About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.

Merchandise Now Available: If you’re looking for a gift for that hard-to-buy for special someone who has everything, just click on the link to the johnkassnews.com store.

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Comments 41

  1. “Barack, in a few seconds they’ll walk over here and put a camera in your face and ask why you’re here. Do you want that now?” Great heads up!

    It might have been a question like, ” Who is your all-time favorite White Sox player?” (crickets chirping)

    Or, this dreadnaught of an inquiry, ” Hey, Barry, how do you get into a boxing ring?”

    2. I remember that fire at the E2 Nightclub. Was working midnights at Area 4 that night. Barack showed his true fake deceitful self to you. Would have given anything to have seen that scene with you.
      As soon as Susan Rice uttered that phrase “by the book” it was as if she had shouted it. My brain interpreted it as, “Here comes another big lie.” She didn’t disappoint. Really great article John Kass. Thanks!

  2. John, they weren’t all kids. I was looking at a guy who died in that incident for several murders. He was a leader with the Black Gangsters.

  3. “The owners were friends of mine” is all you need to know about his empty soul. It reminds me of when Putin visited the Belsen school massacre and did all the perfunctory and obligatory gestures, but his eyes and his words betrayed a soulless ghoul who had no ounce of genuine humanity. The 21 black kids were just collateral damage to Barry as were the Belsen kids were to Putin in his war with the Chechens.

  4. John knows Obama better than most reporters outside Chicago and as an Obama supporter,I knew about the bad real estate deal with hope from bad Mr.Rezko. I am reserving judgement on whether Obama and aides tried to taint the Trump election win over bad Hillary Cliinton with a Russia collusion narrative because Trump went lower questioning Obama’s birth certificate. John can’t persuade me Trump will be a better President but yes,I can later,with more than Tulsi Gabbard claims of Russia collusion conspiracy that Obama was a dirtbag. But the 2003 nightclub tragedy did not mean Obama did not care for the victims. John has,like Megyn Kelly,become rather biased about Obama. Biden,we can agree,did some very selfish things. Those of you in Chicago who know more about Obama and the Pritzkers ought to speak up.

    1. We had been speaking up Mark. Unfortunately, we were all silenced by not having our “ letters to the editor “ published, having social media posts deleted, and having all other comments that dared to question “ the authority “wiped out. Pritzker, Obama, Emanuel, Clinton’s, Biden, and countless others are all cut from the same cloth. It is The Chicago Way.

    2. Sorry Mark Isenberg, I think you’re on the wrong side here.

      Not only have people in Chicago, who, as you chide “know more about Obama and the Pritzker’s out to speak up”, have not only begun to speak up, they have begun to wake up.

      I saw first hand what the Black community thought of Obama when I was working Metra Electric trains through Hyde Park and South Chicago. They despised the man, felt he turned his back on their community and was (yes, I heard this more than once) an Uncle Tom. I was honestly stunned each and every day. The people in their conversations with other riders would harp about staying away from a particular pizza joint, and other businesses, because he used to frequent them. And Pritzker ? You think he’s ok? Think again about Governor Safe-T “toilets”. Raises taxes and adds yet more while avoiding paying his own and is responsible for violent criminals walking because of his ridiculous free ‘em law.

      Each and every day now something new comes out about the illustrious, wholesome, uniting Barack Obama. I was conned by a union leader about how he was the next up & coming guy when he was running for Illinois Congress. I fell for the hype, I’m as guilty of that as anyone.

      So, does this get done this time? Will we see corrupt judges and a bias media continue to run cover or will it be war tribunals for the truth to be uncovered. What will it take for people to finally acknowledge just how evil these people really are? How many will and should be taken down with him…Hillary should be at the forefront.

      Disgustingly sad time in American History.

    3. You sound like Ilhan Omar who once famously stated about the 9-11 disaster, “some people did something over there”. There is a reason John and Megyn Kelly feel the way they do about Obama, HE IS A DIRT BAG.

      Biden did some selfish things? Are you serious? Biden is even lower than Obama. Look at that family. Cocaine addicted children and sell outs to foreign countries and oligarchs, to support and feed the “Big Guys” bank account.

    4. I first encountered Barack in 1995, when he was working for Billy Boy Ayers at the Woods Fund. I was writing grants for an all-Black Catholic HS at the time. ” Barry,” as he called himself jerked me around on a scholarship grant for five months. He was a dope. I thought of Ted Baxter who could read copy, but was otherwise a moron. He was smarmy, smug and self-absorbed.

      Years later, as a fawning, boot-licking Illinois State Senator, Barry asked me how he was expected to get into a boxing ring at an exhibition at the Saber Room in Hickory Hills. “Where’s the gate?,” whined the future Nobel Laureate!

      That is the real Hopium in full- a puffed up, lazy dope.

  5. When Obama said in one of his speeches that he wanted to fundamentally change America, we are now seeing the results. He successfully divided the country and used his race card to the max. I bought into his hope and change. Boy was I wrong. Sadly no one will go to jail or even pay a fine.

  6. When I was young, I was a big fan of President Richard Nixon, in part, because he got us out of the Vietnam War. Unlike the older kids at my school, I did not have to worry about the draft as they did.
    However, Watergate was a legitimate scandal and Nixon had to go. Right is right, and he went. Now Watergate seems like a high school prank in comparison. Time to dust off a copy of The Plot Against The President by Lee Smith that was published in 2019. Read about Devin Nunes and Kash Patel, they’re baaaaack!

  7. One of your best pieces John. Not only propped by real estate FIXER Tony R, but Soros who wants a one world order. Mr Obama rose like a meteor in the sky. A back bencher in Springfield with questionable birth origins. Some of the inconsistencies from Hawaii Vital Records still bothers me. IIRC even with multiple counties birth entries were never out of order. The E2 club fire was no surprise. Skirting or ignoring the law meant to protect the citizens of Chicago were just inconveniences so no one could sneak into the party. You can bet the Black Gangster gang member who perished was not the only tough guy there. What’s Obama to do. Step up and praise those who were lost? Allow his connection to the owners be exposed. Nah. He took your advice and slinked away into the shadows. I shall wait for the evidence to be presented in Congress and for your analysis. Ms Maxwell will get a deal too. Sing like a birdie and she can go back to her previous lifestyle.

    2. “Ms Maxwell will get a deal too. Sing like a birdie and she can go back to her previous lifestyle.”
      The cynic in me wonders if she’ll live long enough for that to happen. The word “Arkancide” keeps springing to mind…

  8. OOOhhh, Mr. Kass, this is good! St. Barack, his “scandal-free” administration, and his rope-a-dope hope and change are about to feel the heat…or are they? So many of these allegations have been buried and the media has been gaslighting us when it comes to him, so I’ll believe the heat when I see it.

    I admit I was under his Svengali-like smooth talking and voted for him…twice. My disappointment and disillusionment grew like a weed after 2012, but he still has many people under his spell. I really HOPE we are at the stage of getting a true look behind the curtain and making a profound CHANGE in the political landscape.

    I can’t wait for Part 2!

  9. Wow.

    For readers, I will tell you the first time I met John Kass. He was standing in front of the Tribune Tower smoking a cigarette. I told him how much I liked his column at the Trib. We started talking about food. It was almost dinner time, and I didn’t want to go across the street to the Purple Pig because it was jammed, and too expensive. John suggested an Italian place down below the Trib Tower (I forget the name, but I have eaten there more than once-they had a decent chicken vesuvio too). It’s moved locations now. He suggested the “sausage and peppers, best in the city”.

    I went. Ordered the sausage and peppers with some cheap Italian red wine. John was correct. What I am trying to say is that people who don’t subscribe to John (and I don’t know why you wouldn’t) will read this and try to discount him as some newsguy going for clicks. He isn’t. He is what we used to call on the trading floor a “stand-up guy”.

    Not enough stand-up people in journalism these days.

  10. John, Obama was a close associate of Tony Rezko. Rezko never implicated any associates. Had he divulged his inappropriate and illegal activities with Hussein Barack Obama, he may have reduced his ridiculous sentence, but that would have precluded Obama’s meteoric rise in politics. Therefore, it is not surprising that Obama feels he is above the law.

  11. So, what’s going to happen to the “NOT Presidential Library”? The Dummy-crats couldn’t wait to build that monstrosity. When will the Chumbalones have to start footing the bill?

  12. John,
    Like so many things associated with Barack Obama, there are questions and no answers.
    Questions:
    1. Why was Obama even there at the E-2 that day?
    2. Has the media ever explored the relationship of the E-2 owners and Obama?
    3. Obama announced his candidacy for the US Senate in 1/2003 and the E-2 stampede was one month later. How many fundraisers did E-2 hold for Obama?
    4. In the 2007 E-2 trial, was the Obama relationship ever mentioned in the course of the depositions? Certainly, a question of the number and nature of the parties held on the second floor should have been asked.
    5. Since you also mentioned the gang relationship with the E-2 club, what was the southside gang relationships with Obama?

    A true investigative media would ask those questions not just now but in the past.

  13. Maybe it was a missed opportunity John. Maybe if you had let the press eat him alive that day, things would have been different. But no matter what, it still wasn’t as bad as Ditka’s missed opportunity. Remember that?
    The sordid details of Jack Ryan’s divorce proceedings were mysteriously unsealed, forcing him to drop out? Ditka had a chance to run for US senate but didn’t.

  14. I first noted Obama during his service as state senator, the Illinois legislative review reported him as a “present” vote on many very controversial initiatives, such as parental abortion notification re: minors.
    The 2008 Clinton campaign fact sheet still available online reads: “But the Obama campaign failed to address the fact that Sen. Obama voted present 129 times on a wide array of issues, including choice, privacy for victims of sexual assault, and school violence. “

  15. Yianni,
    I agree with the premise that Obama directed and led the Russia collusion hoax, but so what? Nothing will happen to him, as I understand it, he cannot be prosecuted for acts committed as a president. So it’s a wild goose chase, that maybe ends with a prosecution of the underlings that followed his directives. Maybe, but I kinda doubt it. They’ll all plead the 5th, unless it can be proven they lied under oath before Congress or Senate. Stay tuned….the games are about to begin!!! OPA!

    2. Exactly. The irony is that none other than Donald Trump comes to Barack’s rescue. Trump v USA (2024) is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. And is relevant to the issue here. The Court determined that presidential immunity from criminal prosecution presumptively extends to all of a president’s “official acts”. And with absolute immunity for official acts within an exclusive presidential authority that Congress cannot regulate (as per Wikipedia). So good luck, John, wasting your time making a case to “get ole Barack.” This is a big nothing burger, a proverbial “chinese fire drill” that will result in zilch.

      By the way, after The Court issued Trump v USA, all the Democrats heads exploded: “Trump is now King, yada yada yada.” Well guess what? The same applies to Mr. Obama.

  17. If nothing comes of this, the Republic is in danger of imploding. The level of conspiracy and corruption is unbelievable. I recall Obama expelling Russian diplomats to further the conspiracy.

  19. About that time Obama was coming to my attention and my teenage daughter told me about the term “poser”, someone who assumes a personality to fit in with the group he is currently with. Which describes Obama to a tee. He spent his entire life bouncing from his white family to his Kenyan family to American black society to elite college society and he learned to master the art of changing to fit in. He has always been a phony without much substance.

  21. John, this is a great retrospective of the pre-Barry-as-Jesus getting daily hosannas. One might even say it’s a “by the book” Webster’s Dictionary definition of a coward personified!

  22. John, as always you’re spot-on with your assessment of BHO: his coldness and how shallow he really is. He truly is a constructed person, and I’m telling you – every time I met with him when he was an Illinois Senator I came away from the encounter feeling like I’d just spent time with the Illinois version of the Manchurian Candidate.

    I was President of DuPage Mayors and Managers Association, serving on the DuPage County Stormwater Management Committee, while I was President of our Village. The director of the South Suburban Mayors & Managers group asked us for help for his communities that were really struggling to deal with stormwater in that area that is so plagued with water problems in any kind of a storm. We put together a day-long symposium for the benefit of all of the south suburban towns and villages. Our host location was Governors’ State University, and our Master of Ceremonies for the Day was Professor Paul Green from Roosevelt University (and WGN!). We brought village engineers, various village attorneys, planners, etc., etc. to do group prsentations and break out sessions to try to help our South Suburban friends. Guest of ‘honor’? One Barack Obama, who was the State Senator for that area….our hope being that if a product of the conference was the need for some specialized state legislation that he would be our avenue to help his district.

    He arrived for the breakfast, asked me “so what are all these people here for anyway?” – I explained, and the day began. We reconvened for the excellent lunch provided by Governors’ State, he once again sat next to me, and expressed his amazement that all of these people were here to just talk about “rain water”. I started to explain about the massive damage that is caused, what we’re trying to help them fix, etc., etc. He said, “You mean there’s MORE of this?” I told him the conference would go to 5:00 p.m. He stopped in the middle of his lunch, stood up, said “This is bullsh*t!” and left!!!! And this was for HIS PEOPLE!!!

    Not too many months after that I had an appointment to meet with him in his Springfield office to go over the Legislative Agenda for the DuPage Mayors and Managers (annual trek). Sent our material ahead of time, complete with summaries, etc., brought additional copies…everything to make it easy for the Senator to take up for the municipalities. He did meet with us, riffled around with the papers a bit, and then stood up. Said he was needed for a vote on the Senate floor, and left through the back door each Senator had in their office. EXCEPT – we knew the Senate was not in session at the time; and we knew which was the way to get to the Senate floor if that was, indeed, his destination. He went the other way! His secretary finally came in and told us he’d left for the day.

    There were other encounters, too, but you get the picture. The point is, in the various times and settings I met with him it became very clear: He is just not that bright! He “presents” well, he is cunning and slick, loves to flash his handsome smile….but I’m telling you, he is not the master-mind of all of this. He may contribute, and he may have learned some of the “ins and outs” over time, and he knows the lingo and “how it’s done”…..but he is a front for someone else. He did not conjure this all up on his own. He’s been well-compensated for doing his job.

  23. Look at Obama and Putin just having a good laugh, On the eve before One million + Russians and Ukrainians perish because of the all the fun, and games. Obama, the Crimson stick guy.

    So trite

  24. Thank you John for this great piece. The main stream media is almost completely ignoring or downplaying the depth of the conspiracy concocted again candidate and then president Trump. I quit reading the daily newspapers but kept the subscriptions for my wife who reads them every day. Following the revelations by Tulsi Gabbard, I asked it she seen anything about this in the newspapers. It was all over the internet and Facebook. She hadn’t seen anything, and watching the news on TV, the Tulsi Gabbard revelation was never mentioned at all. It is stunning that the main stream media, as you suggested, is in complete denial of what is objectively, chronological data, which outlines the deceit and depth of seditious activity against President Trump. This obvious look the other way by the media is consistent with their biased Democratic leaning.

    I had occasion to sit in a meeting in Springfield, Illinois in which Obama was the speaker talking about racial profiling by the police to a group of Police Chiefs to get their support for a bill he was trying to get enacted. He was a smooth talker, who got the Chief association to agree not to oppose the bill, despite a lot of chiefs who disagreed with the bill. That racial profiling bill since enacted, is now being used as a bludgeon, against departments by the ACLU and others as proof the police are biased against minorities. That in itself further divides the community and the police. That is such a joke when other data such as crime rates and lawlessness within a community are ignored. If the vast majority of a community is black or Hispanic, who do you think is going get stopped by the police.

  25. Shouldn’t work on the Obama Temple in Jackson Park be suspended for a while until we find out if Barack turns out to be guilty of treason? And then, if he is found guilty, what should be done with it? As much as I would like to see that ugly monstrosity demolished with explosives and have the one thousand old growth trees that were destroyed to build it replaced, I’m pretty sure Chicago will be stuck with the thing forever. However, even Chicago should have enough phony pride to not want a massive presidential library in one of its most beautiful parks named after a stone cold traitor if that’s how things turn out. So if Obama eventually goes down I say convert the thing into a federal pen like the Metropolitan Correctional Center downtown. The two buildings already kind of resemble each other. It would be a fitting tribute to the man who concocted the greatest political scandal in American history.

  26. Has anyone read a crime novel — Chandler or pick your accomplished fiction writer — as chillingly good as this account of TRUE crime by Kass? And there’s more to come!

    This column made me wonder about relative public awareness of one major reality compared to one major fiction: the reality of Obama’s original sponsor (in home owning and political success) being a mobster, compared to the sinister Obama-created fiction of “Trump-Russia collusion.” Would the ratio be 1:100,000? Probably larger.

    That in turn made me think about the 75% decline in circulation of “the paper” since 2003. Peddling significantly fictionalized news is tough.

  27. The smoking guns have been found. Yesterday Clapper said he’s lawyering up. The rest of Obama’s crew had better do the same. It seems unthinkable that the Great Obama who’s always gotten away with murder because he’s black, the Saint of the Left who the media fawned over, defended, and never questioned, could ever possibly have his own mansions ransacked by the FBI, be charged with serious crimes, be arrested, be found guilty, and even be thrown in prison, yet that is exactly what he tried to do to Donald J. Trump. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. It’s a miracle that Donald Trump isn’t sitting in prison today instead of the White House. Perhaps the God of All Creation has been carefully watching Obama’s plotting, lying, and deceiving for all these years and the time for justice is at hand. Pray that it is so. And for Hillary and Joe to be next in line for what they’ve done. They have hurt us all.

    1. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free!” There is nothing hidden among men that shall not be revealed by our God at the appropriate time. Hoping in this case that time has come!

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