Obama's former pastor says he's 'toxic' to US Administration

The Rev Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Barack Obama, revealed in an originally private letter that his relationship with the president is pretty much non-existent since the first family withdrew their membership from the church he once led.

"No one in the Obama administration will respond to me, listen to me, talk to me or read anything that I write to them,” Wright wrote to Joseph Prischak, the president of Africa 6000 International, earlier this year.

“I am 'toxic' in terms of the Obama administration," he added.

The letter, which was dated February 18, was recently made public after a copy was faxed to an attorney for a case involving Arthur Morrison, one-time manager of boxing great Muhammad Ali and now federal inmate. Prischak, the sole recipient of Wright’s letter, is a business partner of Morrison.

According to The Associated Press, which first reported on the letter, Prischak had written to Wright a week earlier seeking help in lobbying US authorities to permit 25 million British pounds in interest from money held in an overseas account to be allowed to be sent to faith-based groups for the children of Haiti.

Prischak said that Uday Hussein, the son of Saddam Hussein, had entrusted 87 million British pounds in 1990 to Morrison and Ali to buy pharmaceuticals, milk and food for the children of Iraq.

The money was reportedly never spent, however, because Morrison was convicted of 14 charges and has been imprisoned for the past 18 years.

In his reply, Wright told Prischak that he would try but that any letter he sent would certainly go “straight into the trashcan.”

“I am ‘radioactive,’ Sir,” he wrote in his strongest language since his fallout with then-presidential hopeful Obama. “When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!”

Obama and his family withdrew their membership from Trinity United Church of Christ in May 2008 after controversy arose over sermons that their long-time pastor had preached in 2001 and 2003.

In the sermons, Wright lashed out against the US government, accusing it of “purposely infect[ing] African American men with syphilis” and “inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.” He also suggested that American had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself.

“America's chickens are coming home to roost," Wright said after bringing up the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

Obama, in response, said he was “outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle”.

The Obamas have been without a home church ever since.