Fay Hartog Levin (right) becomes the third Chicagoan picked by POTUS for an ambassadorship. Levin, an Illinois Finance Committee member for PrezCanO’s presidential campaign, is headed to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
In the 2008 cycle, Levin contributed $2100 in 2007. By contributing $28,500 to the Obama Victory Fund in July 2008, Levin earned the status of Mega-Donor. Previously, Levin contributed $12,000 to Obama For Illinois in 2003 and $4000 in 2002.
Levin joins fellow Chicagoans, “Big Obama fund-raisers Lou Sussman for England and David Jacobson for Canada,” Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times writes. And let’s not forget another Obama fundraiser ambassadorial entry, Charles H. Rivkin, who was officially named June 1 as Chief of Mission to France and Monaco. (See RBO’s So, which is it? — “who you know”, “what you know” or “to whom you owe” that counts? posted May 27 for details.)
POTUS made the official announcement July 2:
Fay Hartog-Levin is a Senior Consultant at the Res Publica Group, a Chicago-based public affairs and media relations firm. At Res Publica, she advises clients on all aspects of internal and external communications and relationship building, with an emphasis on the non-profit and cultural sector. She has assisted non-profits to develop strategic partnerships, to leverage their visibility, and to maximize their support among traditional and non-traditional audiences and funders. Prior to joining Res Publica, Hartog-Levin served as both an attorney and an executive at Chicago’s Field Museum, where she was the Vice President for External Affairs. Earlier in her career, Ms. Hartog-Levin served as a legal advisor to the Illinois State Board of Education, advising the State Superintendent and Regional Superintendents of Education on the interpretation and application of the Illinois School Code. She has also worked as an attorney in private practice, primarily representing school boards, private and public colleges, and social service agencies. Ms. Hartog-Levin is a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in Russian language and literature. She received her J.D. from Loyola University School of Law.
Although Levin is not identified as a lobbyist, the firm for which she works, Res Publica, is a registered federal lobbying firm.
Sweet adds:
Fay Hartog-Levin, a longtime Democratic activist and fund-raiser and an early career supporter of Barack Obama, was tapped Thursday to be ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Her husband, Daniel Levin, is the chairman of The Habitat Company and the founder of the East Bank Club. Valerie Jarrett, before joining the Obama White House as a senior advisor, was the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company. Levin’s cousins are Michigan Democrats, Sen. Carl Levin and his brother, Rep. Sandy Levin.
A Winnetka resident, Hartog-Levin is a senior consultant at the Res Publica Group, a Chicago-based public affairs and media relations firm.
The Chicago Tribune’s John McCormick adds:
Daniel Levin was also the developer of the East Bank Club in Chicago, where many of Obama’s political friendships were established on the basketball court.
Fay Hartog-Rapp
Known as Fay Hartog and Fay Hartog-Rapp with the Chicago law firm Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson in 1991, in 1994 she served as legal counsel to Illinois Public School District 219 (Niles Township High Schools).
Fay Hartog-Rapp was with the Chicago law firm Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather and Geraldson until at least 2004.
An undated Education for Freedom lesson plan, Case Summary: Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, includes the following:
Administrators and school board members who want to support student press rights often must face parents and pressure groups that are far less tolerant.
Fay Hartog-Rapp, acting as legal counsel to about three dozen school districts in the Chicago area, said, “It is the responsibility to the entire school community that school officials must consider when they make the difficult decision on censorship.”
Hartog-Rapp acknowledges that student journalists can learn valuable lessons from the mistakes they make, but cautions, “One must always question what price [is paid by] those mistakes . . . if [they are] to the detriment of other students’ personal privacy or their reputation or their view of themselves in the school,” Hartog-Rapp said. Codes limiting hate speech exist for that reason, she said.
“You need to look at it as a lesson not only in civics, but in economics and accountability,” she continued. “The question is, what is our responsibility to the greater community who we serve, and is the educational lesson more important than the harm that might befall the rest of the community.”
Fay Hartog-Rapp is the co-author of “Religious Garb: May Public School Teachers Wear It?” and “Accommodation of Employees’ Religious Observances” with Gretchen Winter and Michele Freedenthal.
Another campaign “suggestion” broken
The Boston Globe’s Foon Ree writes:
President Obama this afternoon nominated another batch of ambassadors.
And par for the course so far, career diplomats are getting, shall we say, the less high-profile posts — while campaign donors are getting the plum spots. [...]
The president picked longtime Foreign Service officers for the ambassadorships in Mongolia, Burkina Faso, and Swaziland, and a longtime academic for the one in Malta.
“I am confident that these fine individuals will represent our nation abroad with distinction, and strengthen our diplomatic efforts to meet 21st century challenges. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead,” Obama said in a statement.
The president has also tapped major fund-raisers or politicians for sought-after postings in European capitals including London, Paris, and Rome, as well as the high-profile embassies in Beijing and Tokyo. As part of his pledge to change Washington, he had suggested he would reduce the number of political appointees as ambassadors, and increase the ranks of career diplomats.
Reid Wilson at The Hill points out Hartog-Levin “[brings] to 15 the number of prominent financiers who will head to American embassies overseas.”
Rezko’s “Dirty Money”
Levin is not the only staffer from Res Publica with Obama ties.
In March 2008, based on a list of names of individuals linked to convicted political fixer — and Obama’s personal estate fairy — Tony Rezko that was compiled June 2007 by Chicago’s ABC News, RBO posted an article about a possible June 30, 2003 fundraiser for Obama held by Rezko.
One name on that list is G.J. Chipparoni, President of Res Publica Group (registered lobbyists), who contributed $2,000.
At the end of March 2008 RBO posted a detailed article based on the U.S. Department of Justice exhibit entitled Rezko Donation Chart June 2001 to August 2004, which was an FBI analysis of Rezko fundraising for Rod Blagojevich 2001-2004, used by the prosecution during Rezko’s corruption trial.
Again, we have Guy Chipparoni’s name, having contributed $1000 June 14, 2004, and $10,000.00 June 21, 2004.
In the November 2007 issue of Chicago Magazine, James L. Merriner wrote:
Two days before last November’s elections, benefactors held a fashion show in the Rosemont convention center to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. The invitation to the affair offered a veritable guidebook to political influence in Illinois, much of it centered on one St. Jude benefactor, Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
The chair of the event was Rezko’s wife, Rita, a member of the Cook County Employee Appeals Board, which hears cases brought by fired or disciplined workers. (She was appointed to the part-time post, which pays $37,000 a year, by John Stroger, the former president of the Cook County Board, whose 2002 campaign finance committee was headed by Tony Rezko.) The fashion show’s honorary cochair was Governor Rod Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, who owns a real-estate firm (and has been involved in real-estate deals with Tony Rezko dating back to 1997).
The event’s sponsoring committee included Governor Blagojevich’s former spokeswoman, Cheryle Jackson, who now heads the Chicago Urban League; Becky Ruff Chipparoni, whose husband, Guy Chipparoni, was the press secretary for then secretary of state Jim Edgar before setting up a public-relations firm in Chicago (Chipparoni has represented some of Rezko’s businesses); and Hollie Rumman, whose husband, Michael Rumman, served as one of Blagojevich’s cabinet members (and is an investor with Rezko in various deals, such as a proposed power plant in Iraq).
Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic U.S. senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, was a special guest that day (even though the news had just broken about Rezko’s participation in a funky real-estate transaction involving the Obamas’ Hyde Park home).
Oh. By the way, Lynn Sweet reported July 2 that Cheryle Jackson is “moving closer to a run for the U.S. Senate, opening an exploratory committee this week.” FYI– That would be POTUS’s barely-used Senate seat she’d be seeking.
Any questions?
Kamran Khan, M.D., M.P.H. (
The Obama administration has fallen silent, at least, hard to hear. The excuse may be that the White House does not want to trouble Tehran while British Foreign Secretary David Milliband is 
Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.--Thomas Jefferson.
