By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
One of President Obama’s closest friends is not cooperating in a federal investigation, prompting the Justice Department to seek Dr. Eric E. Whitaker as a “hostile witness,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Prosecutors filed the motion Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, where a Chicago businessman, Leon Dingle Jr., is on trial on charges of stealing more than $3 million in tax dollars from state grants.
Prosecutors said Whitaker, who has not been charged, benefited at least three times from the state grant money.
Whitaker incensed prosecutors when he backed off a deal to cooperate with investigators.
The cooperation ended, prosecutors said, when Whitaker was asked about his relationship with Quinshaunta R. Golden, the former state official who oversaw the grants.
Whitaker was asked whether he had a “sexual relationship” with Golden and refused to cooperate.
Prosecutors said he is “a witness clearly hostile to the government.”
