{"id":525426,"date":"2010-04-12T15:22:47","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T19:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01347fd37ec8970c"},"modified":"2010-04-12T16:30:05","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T20:30:05","slug":"giannoulias-seeks-distance-from-broadway-bank-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/525426","title":{"rendered":"Giannoulias seeks distance from Broadway Bank controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE by John Chase<\/em> at 3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias today sought to change the subject from the controversy over his family’s struggling Broadway Bank and accused Republican opponent Mark Kirk of overplaying the issue.<\/p>\n

In a luncheon speech to about 300 people at the City Club of Chicago, Giannoulias once again acknowledged his involvement in approving loans that turned into bad investments for the bank, which could soon be taken over by federal regulators. <\/p>\n

But he offered no further explanation about his role in troubled loans made to crime figures, despite a recent Tribune story that raised new questions about those deals when he was a senior loan officer at the bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth of the matter is when you have a bank with thousands of customers it\u2019s easy to cherry-pick a few and go back in time and say I wish we wouldn\u2019t have done business with these individuals\u2026that\u2019s not how the real world business model works, unfortunately,\u201d Giannoulias told reporters after the speech. \u201cAs I\u2019ve said before, if I knew then what I knew now, these aren\u2019t the kinds of people that we want to do business with. <\/p>\n

"And it\u2019s an unfair and it\u2019s an offensive characterization of Broadway Bank\u2019s customers when we have hundreds, when we have thousands of customers that are hard-working men and women that have started their first store, bought their first home, hired individuals, have been a fabric of the economy here in Chicago that are great people, that wouldn\u2019t have gotten their start if it weren\u2019t for that bank.\u201d
<\/br>
<\/br>Giannoulias, the first-term state treasurer, instead sought to turn the heat up on Kirk, a North Shore congressman. He said Kirk has accepted campaign contributions from corporate interests and voted their way in Congress and that he has yet to discuss his stances on issues, including his vow to lead the repeal on the recently passed health care legislation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cMy point here today is to elevate the debate,\u201d Giannoulias said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to let this campaign be overshadowed by his negative attacks and lies. Not when people of Illinois desperately need solutions. Real families are dealing with real problems. It\u2019s time to elevate the debate.\u201d
<\/br>
<\/br>Giannoulias ran for treasurer in 2006, touting his experience as senior loan officer at Broadway Bank. During his speech, he said he accepted responsibility for nine percent of loans currently on Broadway\u2019s books that have gone bad.
<\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE by John Chase at 3:30 p.m. Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias today sought to change the subject from the controversy over his family’s struggling Broadway Bank and accused Republican opponent Mark Kirk of overplaying the issue. In a luncheon speech to about 300 people at the City Club of Chicago, Giannoulias once again acknowledged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}