Vera Baker

Vera Baker is a former Barack Obama campaign worker who is rumored to have had an affair with Obama during his 2004 Senate campaign. Although it was rumored that Michelle Obama demanded that Baker leave, Baker maintains that she moved to the Caribbean because she fell in love with a man who lived there.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1076695/Obama-hit-affair-smears-following-claims-attractive-aide-banned-wife.html Prior to working on the Senatorial campaign, Baker worked for the Alta Capital Group, Baker-Wambu & Associates, and as the Deputy Political Director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The rumors that originally surfaced in 2008 were attributed by some to be part of a smear campaign organized by rival Hillary Clinton supporters.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1076695/Obama-hit-affair-smears-following-claims-attractive-aide-banned-wife.html The story resurfaced in 2009 when author Christopher Andersen published Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage'.' In the book, Andersen alleges that a "jealous" Michelle Obama "had engineered Baker's departure" from the campaign.http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/michelle_obama_revenge_for_flirts_ry4s4gFjmmxR7dQ2p6mFiL

On April 30, 2010, the National Enquirer released details of an interview with a limo driver who alleges he dropped Obama and Baker off at Obama's hotel at the end of an evening. The driver stated that to the best of his knowledge, Baker did not have a room at the hotel. According to the driver, at about 10:30 PM, he drove them to the hotel and they went in together and that there was no indication she was going to leave the hotel that night."http://www.nationalenquirer.com/obama_cheating_scandal_vera_baker_video_/celebrity/68589 The Enquirer article mentions that it attempted to acquire the hotel's surveillance video to validate the driver's allegations.http://www.nationalenquirer.com/reports_obama_cheating_scandal_vera_baker_investigation/celebrity/68590

Baker has denied that she had an affair with Obama.http://www.nationalenquirer.com/obama_cheating_scandal_vera_baker_video_/celebrity/68589 She also has denied that Michelle Obama forced her to leave the campaign, saying "No...nothing happened. I just left ... at the end of the campaign."http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005010006 However, on May 5, 2010 the Chicago Sun Times quoted a source who said that Baker told Senator Burris' office when she was hired as his chief of staff that "...Michelle Obama had an issue with her closeness to her husband and ended up losing her job . . . and she subsequently moved to the island of Martinique. She never said she had an affair with Obama, but she did say they were very close."http://www.suntimes.com/news/sneed/2236384,CST-NWS-SNEED05.article