The scumbaggery goes all the way to the top.

(Politico) — The civil rights hero who introduced President Barack Obama at a political fund-raiser in Washington Monday night, Ernie Green, pleaded guilty in 2001 to a federal misdemeanor tax violation after becoming enmeshed in an investigation into illegal foreign money given to Democrats in the 1996 election.

Green gained prominence as one of the Little Rock nine — nine black students who desgregated that city’s Central High School in 1957. He later served as an assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Jimmy Carter and won a Congressional Gold Medal from President Bill Clinton, who was a longtime friend of Green.

“What an incredible honor to be introduced by Ernie Green. Please give Ernie Green a big round of applause. . . . I would not be standing here today were it not for people like Ernie Green,” Obama said during the fundraiser at the Capital Hilton for the Obama Victory Fund — a joint fundraising account for the Democratic National Committee and Obama’s re-election campaign.

In the 1990s, Green, a Lehman Brothers investment banker, had a series of business dealings with Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie. Trie was a Little Rock businessman at the center of the scandal over foreign-source financial donations to Democratic campaigns and causes in the 1996 election.

Federal prosecutors and Congressional investigators were suspicious of a series of cash deposits Green made to his bank totaling about $30,000 around the same time he donated $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee. The donation apparently earned an invite for Green and a Chinese arms dealer, Wang Jun, to a White House “coffee” with Clinton.

Green initially denied taking any money from Trie, but later told Congressional investigators he won $2,000 from Trie in a basketball bet. In 2001, Green pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor offense of failing to file an income tax returns in connection with $30,000 he received from Trie. Green was sentenced to three months home detention and a $10,000 fine, as well as two years probation.

A Democratic National Committee official told a pool reporter who attended the reception Monday that about 650 guests paid between $44 and $35,800 to attend the event and, in the case of high-end-donors, a more intimate dinner with Obama at another D.C. hotel.