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.