Obama Fails to Endow $850 Million Presidential Center, Exposing Taxpayers to Liability
by Nick R. Hamilton
Former President Barack Obama’s presidential center has ignored its obligation to set up an endowment to protect taxpayers from financial liability, according to its records.
Just $1 million has been deposited into a reserve fund meant to bail out taxpayers in case the Obama Presidential Center fails, Fox News reported.
This comes despite the center making a $470 million pledge in 2020.
With projected operating costs of up to $40 million in the first year alone, the center is resting on financial quicksand, says Richard Epstein, a University of Chicago law professor emeritus and a New York University law professor.
Epstein has spent years advising Protect Our Parks.
The organization has fought in vain to block the Obama Presidential Center from being built on a 20-acre section of Jackson Park.
While a deal between the center and Chicago did not specify a dollar amount, the $1 million endowment is nowhere close to covering the center’s operating budget.
“They put a million dollars into a $400 million endowment, so it’s endowed,” Epstein told Fox News Digital.
“That gets you in jail as a securities matter.
“An endowment means that you have the money in hand.