Jack Smith (Lawyer) Biography, wiki, age, real name, career, wife, net worth

Community organizer and Harvard Law School

When Obama was hired as the director of the Developing Communities Project, a religiously based community organization that at its inception included eight Catholic churches in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago’s South Side, he relocated from New York to Chicago two years after receiving his degree from Columbia.

From June 1985 to May 1988, he served as an organizer for the local community.In Altgeld Gardens, he worked to establish a tenants’ rights group, a college prep program, and a job training program.

Obama also served the Gamaliel Foundation, a school for community organizing, as a consultant and educator. He had his first trip in the middle of 1988, spending three weeks in Europe before spending five weeks in Kenya, where he first got to know many of his paternal ancestors.

Family and personal life

“It’s like a little mini-United Nations,” Obama said in a 2006 interview, highlighting the diversity of his large family. “I have relatives who resemble Bernie Mac and those who resemble Margaret Thatcher.”

Maya Soetoro-Ng, a half-sister with whom he was reared, and seven other half-siblings, six of whom are still alive, come from the Kenyan father’s family.

Madelyn Dunham, a Kansas native who had been Obama’s mother up until her passing on November 2, 2008—two days before he was elected president—was Obama’s mother.

Obama also has roots in Ireland; he met with his Irish cousins in Moneygall in May 2011. In Dreams from My Father, Obama ties his mother’s family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.

He also shares distant ancestors in common with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, among others. Obama lived with anthropologist Sheila Miyoshi Jager while he was a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s.

He proposed to her twice, but both Jager and her parents turned him down. The relationship was not made public until May 2017, several months after his presidency had ended.

In June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.

Robinson was assigned for three months as Obama’s adviser at the firm, and she joined him at several group social functions but declined his initial requests to date. They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992.

Michelle used in vitro fertilization to conceive their children after having a miscarriage. Malia Ann, the couple’s first child, was born in 1998, and Natasha (“Sasha”), the second child, was born in 2001.

The Laboratory Schools at the University of Chicago were attended by the Obama girls. They enrolled the girls in Sidwell Friends School when they first arrived in Washington, D.C., in January 2009. The first Portuguese Water Dog, a male named Bo, was a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy. The Obamas had two of them.

In 2013, a girl named Sunny joined Bo. Cancer claimed Bo’s life on May 8, 2021. Obama is a fan of the Chicago White Sox, and in 2005, while he was still a senator, he threw out the opening pitch at the ALCS.

In 2009, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the All-Star Game while wearing a White Sox jacket.

He is also primarily a Chicago Bears football fan in the NFL, but in his childhood and adolescence was a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and rooted for them ahead of their victory in Super Bowl XLIII 12 days after he took office as president.

In 2011, Obama invited the 1985 Chicago Bears to the White House; the team had not visited the White House after their Super Bowl win in 1986 due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

He plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school’s varsity team,and he is left-handed.

In 2005, the Obama family applied the proceeds of a book deal and moved from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to a $1.6 million house (equivalent to $2.4 million in 2022) in neighboring Kenwood, Chicago.

The purchase of an adjacent lot—and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer, campaign donor and friend Tony Rezko—attracted media attention because of Rezko’s subsequent indictment and conviction on political corruption charges that were unrelated to Obama.

Obama’s net worth was assessed by Money Magazine to be $1.3 million in December 2007 (equating to $1.8 million in 2022).

Their 2009 tax return revealed a household income of $5.5 million, primarily from the sales of his books, up from $4.2 million in 2007 and $1.6 million in 2005.

He donated 14% of his $1.7 million 2010 salary to nonprofits, including $131,000 to the Fisher House Foundation, which helps families of wounded warriors live close to the location of the veteran’s medical care. Obama’s 2012 financial report revealed that he may be worth up to $10 million.

Religion

Obama identifies as a Protestant Christian, and as an adult, his religious beliefs have grown. The Audacity of Hope quotes him as saying that he “was not raised in a religious household.” His mother, who was brought up by nonreligious parents, was described as disengaged from religion but also as “in many ways the most spiritually awakened person… I have ever known” and “a lonely witness for secular humanism.”

By the time his parents met, he claimed that his father had become “confirmedly atheist,” and that his stepfather “saw religion as not particularly useful.” In his speech, Obama described how his community organizing work with black churches in his 20s helped him see “the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change.”

In January 2008, Obama told Christianity Today: “I am a Christian, and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I believe that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life.” On September 27, 2010, Obama released a statement commenting on his religious views, saying:

I’m a Christian by choice. My family didn’t—frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church.

So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead—being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me.

Obama met Trinity United Church of Christ pastor Jeremiah Wright in October 1987 and became a member of Trinity in 1992. During Obama’s first presidential campaign in May 2008, he resigned from Trinity after some of Wright’s statements were criticized.

Since moving to Washington, D.C., in 2009, the Obama family has attended several Protestant churches, including Shiloh Baptist Church and St. John’s Episcopal Church, as well as Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, but the members of the family do not attend church on a regular basis.

In 2016, he claimed that a few things that remind him “of all the different people I’ve met along the way” and that he always carries with him inspire him.

Since I’m not particularly superstitious, I don’t feel the need to wear them constantly. “A whole bowl full” of artifacts were handed to him, including rosary beads from Pope Francis, a Hanuman figurine from Hinduism, a Coptic cross from Ethiopia, a tiny Buddha statue from a monk, and a metal poker chip that was formerly the lucky charm of an Iowa motorcycle rider.

Legal career

Civil rights attorney

He joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney legal practice with a focus on community economic development and civil rights litigation, where he served as an associate for three years, from 1993 to 1996, and as counsel from 1996 to 2004.

In the case Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank, 94 C 4094 (N.D. Ill.), he was mentioned as one of the attorneys. Selma Buycks-Roberson was the primary plaintiff in this class action complaint, which was brought in 1994.

It claimed that Citibank Federal Savings Bank had engaged in actions that were illegal under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act.

The case was settled out of court. Final judgment was issued on May 13, 1998, with Citibank Federal Savings Bank agreeing to pay attorney fees.

Obama served on the boards of directors of the Joyce Foundation and the Woods Fund of Chicago from 1994 to 2002. The Woods Fund of Chicago was the first foundation to support the Developing Communities Project in 1985.

He was the founding president and board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 1999, and he served on the board of directors from 1995 to 2002. Obama lost the ability to practice law in 2007.

Presidency (2009–2017)

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president. Obama directed the U.S. military to create plans for the withdrawal of soldiers from Iraq in his first few days in office by issuing executive orders and presidential memoranda.

He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, but Congress prevented the closure by refusing to appropriate the required funds and preventing moving any Guantanamo detainee. Obama reduced the secrecy given to presidential records.

Additionally, he revoked President George W. Bush’s decision to reinstate the Mexico City policy, which forbade federal funding for international family planning groups that perform abortions or offer abortion counseling.

Domestic policy

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which lowered the statute of limitations for equal-pay claims, was the first piece of legislation Obama signed into law.

In order to cover an extra four million uninsured children, he reauthorized the State Children’s Health Insurance Program five days later.

Obama promised to create “strict guidelines” for the research when he overturned a Bush-era ban that had restricted funding for embryonic stem cell research in March 2009.

Obama appointed two women to serve on the Supreme Court in the first two years of his presidency. He nominated Sonia Sotomayor on May 26, 2009, to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter; she was confirmed on August 6, 2009, becoming the first Supreme Court Justice of Hispanic descent.

Obama nominated Elena Kagan on May 10, 2010, to replace retiring Associate Justice John Paul Stevens. She was confirmed on August 5, 2010, bringing the number of women sitting simultaneously on the Court to three for the first time in American history.

On March 11, 2009, Obama created the White House Council on Women and Girls, which formed part of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, having been established by Executive Order 13506 with a broad mandate to advise him on issues relating to the welfare of American women and girls.

The council was chaired by Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett. Obama also established the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault through a government memorandum on January 22, 2014, with a broad mandate to advise him on issues relating to sexual assault on college and university campuses throughout the United States.

The co-chairs of the Task Force were Vice President Joe Biden and Jarrett. The Task Force was a development out of the White House Council on Women and Girls and Office of the Vice President of the United States, and prior to that the 1994 Violence Against Women Act first drafted by Biden.

In July 2009, Obama launched the Priority Enforcement Program, an immigration enforcement program that had been pioneered by George W. Bush, and the Secure Communities fingerprinting and immigration status data-sharing program.

In a major space policy speech in April 2010, Obama announced a planned change in direction at NASA, the U.S. space agency. He ended plans for a return of human spaceflight to the moon and development of the Ares I rocket, Ares V rocket and Constellation program, in favor of funding earth science projects, a new rocket type, research and development for an eventual crewed mission to Mars, and ongoing missions to the International Space Station.

On January 16, 2013, one month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Obama signed 23 executive orders and outlined a series of sweeping proposals regarding gun control.

He urged Congress to reintroduce an expired ban on military-style assault weapons, such as those used in several recent mass shootings, impose limits on ammunition magazines to 10 rounds, introduce background checks on all gun sales, pass a ban on possession and sale of armor-piercing bullets, introduce harsher penalties for gun-traffickers, especially unlicensed dealers who buy arms for criminals and approving the appointment of the head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for the first time since 2006.

On January 5, 2016, Obama announced new executive actions extending background check requirements to more gun sellers. In a 2016 editorial in The New York Times, Obama compared the struggle for what he termed “common-sense gun reform” to women’s suffrage and other civil rights movements in American history. On January 5, 2016, Obama announced new executive actions extending background check requirements to more gun sellers.

The Patriot Act was renewed for a further four years by Obama in 2011. Obama criticized the leak as disloyal in the wake of whistleblower Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about widespread eavesdropping, but he also advocated for tighter controls on the National Security Agency (NSA) to address privacy concerns.

Obama implemented certain adjustments while continuing and expanding the monitoring measures started by George W. Bush.

He backed legislation that would have restricted the NSA’s capacity to gather phone records in bulk through a single program, as well as legislation that would have increased the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s (FISC) level of transparency.

Racial issues

Obama did not make more overt allusions to racial issues in his speeches as president than his forerunners, but one research found that he took more aggressive policy measures in favor of African-Americans than any president since the Nixon administration.

After Obama’s victory, many people wondered whether “postracial America” even existed. However, persistent racial animosities soon emerged, and many African-Americans expressed outrage over what they perceived to be a strong racial hate directed at Obama.

The acquittal of George Zimmerman following the killing of Trayvon Martin sparked national outrage, leading to Obama giving a speech in which he noted that “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
The shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked a wave of protests.

These and other events led to the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism toward black people.

Though Obama entered office reluctant to talk about race, by 2014 he began openly discussing the disadvantages faced by many members of minority groups.

Several incidents during Obama’s presidency generated disapproval from the African-American community and with law enforcement, and Obama sought to build trust between law enforcement officials and civil rights activists, with mixed results.

Some in law enforcement criticized Obama’s condemnation of racial bias after incidents in which police action led to the death of African-American men, while some racial justice activists criticized Obama’s expressions of empathy for the police.

In a Gallup poll conducted in March 2016, a higher percentage of Americans—nearly one third—said they worry “a great deal” about racial relations.

LGBT issues and same-sex unions
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate acts Prevention Act, which Obama signed on October 8, 2009, extended the federal hate crime statute passed in the United States in 1969 to cover acts motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

On October 30, 2009, Obama lifted the ban on travel to the United States by those infected with HIV. The lifting of the ban was celebrated by Immigration Equality.

On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010, which fulfilled a promise made in the 2008 presidential campaign to end the don’t ask, don’t tell policy of 1993 that had prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces.

In 2016, the Pentagon ended the policy that barred transgender people from serving openly in the military. As a candidate for the Illinois state senate in 1996, Obama stated he favored legalizing same-sex marriage.

During his Senate run in 2004, he said he supported civil unions and domestic partnerships for same-sex partners but opposed same-sex marriages. In 2008, he reaffirmed this position by stating “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.

I am not in favor of gay marriage.” On May 9, 2012, shortly after the official launch of his campaign for re-election as president, Obama said his views had evolved, and he publicly affirmed his personal support for the legalization of same-sex marriage, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to do so.

Obama became the first American president in office to advocate for full equality for LGBT Americans during his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013, and the first to include gay rights or the word “gay” in an address.

In the 2013 cases of Hollingsworth v. Perry (concerning same-sex marriage) and United States v. Windsor (concerning the Defense of Marriage Act), the Obama administration filed filings pleading with the Supreme Court to find in favor of same-sex couples.

Legacy

Barack Obama is credited by historian Julian Zelizer for having “a keen sense of how the institutions of government work and the ways that his team could design policy proposals.” Zelizer mentions the Dodd-Frank financial and consumer protection measures, the Affordable Care Act, and the economic stimulus package that put an end to the Great Recession as examples of Obama’s successful policy initiatives.

Zelizer also points out that during Obama’s presidency, the Democratic Party lost influence and a significant number of elected officials. He claims that historians generally agree that Obama “turned out to be a very effective policymaker but not a tremendously successful party builder.” This is referred to as the “defining paradox of Obama’s presidency” by Zelizer.

The Brookings Institution noted that Obama passed “only one major legislative achievement (Obamacare)—and a fragile one at that—the legacy of Obama’s presidency mainly rests on its tremendous symbolic importance and the fate of a patchwork of executive actions.”

David W. Wise noted that Obama fell short “in areas many Progressives hold dear”, including the continuation of drone strikes, not going after big banks during the Great Recession, and failing to strengthen his coalition before pushing for Obamacare. Wise called Obama’s legacy that of “a disappointingly conventional president”.

Obama’s most significant accomplishment is generally considered to be the Affordable Care Act (ACA), provisions of which went into effect from 2010 to 2020. Many attempts by Senate Republicans to repeal the ACA, including a “skinny repeal”, have thus far failed.

However, in 2017, the penalty for violating the individual mandate was repealed effective 2019. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act amendment, it represents the U.S. healthcare system’s most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.

Many commentators credit Obama with averting a threatened depression and pulling the economy back from the Great Recession. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Obama administration created 11.3 million jobs from the month after his first inauguration to the end of his second term.

In 2010, Obama signed into effect the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Passed as a response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008, it brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression under Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first addition to the country’s existing federal hate crime law since Democrat President Bill Clinton signed the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996, was included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 that Obama signed into law in 2009.

The act strengthened already-existing federal rules against hate crimes in the US and made it illegal to assault someone because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

As president, Obama advanced LGBT rights. In 2010, he signed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act, which brought an end to “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the U.S. armed forces that banned open service from LGB people; the law went into effect the following year.

In 2016, his administration brought an end to the ban on transgender people serving openly in the U.S. armed forces. A Gallup poll, taken in the final days of Obama’s term, showed that 68 percent of Americans believed the U.S. had made progress on LGBT rights during Obama’s eight years in office.

Obama substantially escalated the use of drone strikes against suspected militants and terrorists associated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In 2016, the last year of his presidency, the U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs on seven different countries. Obama left about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, 5,262 in Iraq, 503 in Syria, 133 in Pakistan, 106 in Somalia, seven in Yemen, and two in Libya at the end of his presidency.

According to Pew Research Center and United States Bureau of Justice Statistics, from December 31, 2009, to December 31, 2015, inmates sentenced in U.S. federal custody declined by five percent.

This is the largest decline in sentenced inmates in U.S. federal custody since Democratic President Jimmy Carter. By contrast, the federal prison population increased significantly under presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

“He has frequently treated human rights as a secondary interest — nice to support when the cost was not too high, but nothing like a top priority he championed,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement about Obama’s record on human rights.

Obama had a 60% approval rating when he stepped down from office in January 2017. The same Brookings Institution survey from 2015, which placed him as the 18th greatest American president, saw him rise 10 points. He scored a 63 percent approval rating in Gallup’s 2018 job approval survey for the ten previous presidents of the United States.

Presidential library

Obama’s future presidential library will be called the Barack Obama Presidential Center. It will take place in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side and be hosted by the University of Chicago.

Net Worth

Obama’s net worth is $70.00 million.
The former president reportedly has a net worth of $70 million, according to both Celebrity Net Worth and Business Insider.