(RNS) The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s former pastor, said Obama “threw me under the bus,” according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
During his presidential campaign, Obama resigned from Wright’s Chicago church after controversial and racially tinged comments by the pastor were widely reported.
Calling himself “toxic” in a letter to Africa 6000 International, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit, Wright said any requests he made to get the Obama administration to release frozen funds would likely go unheard, the AP said.
“I am `radioactive,’ Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!” Wright wrote in a Feb. 18 letter.
“Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!”
He was writing to Joseph Prischak, president of the nonprofit and a business partner of federal inmate Arthur Morrison, boxer Muhammad Ali’s former manager who has served almost 18 years in prison for making phone threats.
The letter by Wright, pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, surfaced in an appeal in Morrison’s case.
Obama broke ties with Wright in 2008, saying some of his comments were “divisive and destructive.”

— Adelle M. Banks
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