Ex-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is still trying to prove that he maintained Chicago residency during his two yers in Washington, so he can become Chicago's next mayor. And that's why he's giving tours of his basement crawlspace.

You may recall that when Emanuel left the White House to start his mayoral campaign, the tenant to whom he'd been renting his Chicago home wouldn't move out early, unless Emanuel paid him $100,000. Then, the tenant tried to run against Emanuel for mayor, until his phony petitions were called out. The tenant seems like a shitty person. Then again, we've never met him.

Since Monday, Emanuel has been fielding questions about his residency status at a public hearing, where pretty much anyone in the room can shout anything. So how's he trying to prove that he never stopped being a resident of Chicago? By showing officials the boxes and valuables he stored in his basement crawlspace, where he was (wisely) hiding things in case his tenant proved to be a shady character:

Attorneys for Emanuel visited the house he owns in Ravenswood at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, located the much-discussed "crawl space," looked inside and found the valuable items Emanuel had maintained he had stored there. They have argued the fact they left the items there while Emanuel went to Washington D.C. to work as President Obama's chief of staff shows he always planned to return to Chicago - and therefore should be eligible to run for mayor.

Attorney Dana S. Douglas brought photos of the boxes - which include his wife's wedding dress and other sentimental items - to Emanuel's ongoing residency hearing just 80 minutes after taking the pictures Wednesday, and she passed copies of the photos around to all the objectors who claim Emanuel is not a bona fide resident of Chicago.

And, again, since pretty much anyone can shout anything at this public hearing, some of them did:

"I believe that these photographs are phony and faked. Those could have been taken in my house," said objector Zakiyyah Muhammad. [...]

Objector Jeffrey Joseph Black said he thought he saw a photo of Obama in one of the photos taken Thursday "all cued up and waiting there" - which he thought was suspicious.

Someone shouted, "They found Obama in the crawlspace?"

"We may be disclosing the secret undisclosed location that Vice-President Dick Cheney and President Obama use … " hearing officer Joe Morris quipped.

We did not see Barack Obama curled up in the photos of Rahm Emanuel's crawlspace. That person was probably on drugs. There was this, however:

That's a New York Times box, like you'd find on a street corner. Rahm Emanuel has one in his basement crawlspace. And which Times edition fills the inside? The one from Barack Obama's inauguration. Did he steal it from the sidewalk? Or was it a gift from the Times? Let's go with "stole it from the sidewalk."

[Top image via AP]