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New Clinton Scandal Mirrors 'Chinagate,' Say Analysts
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 03, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Clinton fundraising flashbacks erupted last week as critics of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) demanded answers about some of her questionable campaign fundraising, aspects of which mirrored the "China-gate" fundraising scandal that plagued the 1996 Bill Clinton-Al Gore campaign.

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has returned money directly donated from a one-time fugitive, Norman Hsu, now in the custody of California authorities. But because she is keeping much of the money he raised for her, along with the history of Clinton fundraising scandals, the issue could linger, analysts say.

"It's not over as long as the press and other candidates keep pointing to it," Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, told Cybercast News Service.

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Clinton camp is hit by scandal over fundraiser wanted for fraud
Tim Reid in Washington

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was hit by scandal for the first time yesterday when it emerged that one of her leading fundraisers was a convicted fraudster who had been on the run for 15 years.

Mrs Clinton, who until now has run a relentlessly disciplined campaign, was forced on to the defensive after it emerged that Norman Hsu, who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for her, was wanted in California after failing to appear for sentencing on a grand theft conviction in 1991.

The Clinton campaign, which defended Mr Hsu earlier this week when questions first emerged about his integrity, said it would donate to charity the $23,000 (£11,000) he had given to the New York senator and former First Lady.

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ORIGINAL: cog41

I heard a report today Mr. Hsu is missing. Wow! here one day and gone the next.
Of course anyone turning states evidence on Hillarty Clinton I should hide.

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Democratic Donor a No Show at Hearing

Sep 5, 4:31 PM (ET)

By PAUL ELIAS



REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) - Disgraced Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu was a wanted man again after he failed to show up for a court date Wednesday and a judge issued a new warrant for his arrest.

Hsu, whose criminal past has roiled the campaigns of top presidential candidates, was scheduled to ask a judge to cut in half the $2 million bail he posted last week when he turned himself in after spending 15 years on the lam from a felony theft conviction.

Instead, San Mateo Superior Court Judge Robert Foiles ordered Hsu's bail forfeited to the county and issued a new arrest warrant. If Hsu is arrested again, he will be jailed without bail this time.

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DEMS' FUNNY MONEY
FAMILIAR CAST OF HSU SCANDAL

By MICHELLE MALKIN September 5, 2007

-- HERE'S a peculiar thing about the holier-than- thou campaign-finance-re form crowd. Whenever the stench of dirty money starts wafting from Democratic Party coffers, the clean-election lobbyists are nowhere to be found. They'll raise hell and hackles over American corporate donors. But when it's shady foreign operators infusing cash into our electoral system, you'll only hear one sound: the deafening swell of crickets chirping.

Hillary and Bill Clinton have declared themselves "shocked" at revelations about one of the Democratic Party's mysterious, deep-pocketed bagmen, Hong Kong native Norman Hsu.

Hsu, a prodigious Democrat donor, was arrested last week after having evaded the law for 15 years over grand-theft swindling charges. Hsu pleaded no contest to those charges and was supposed to serve jail time. Instead, he managed to remain a fugitive while raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates and officeholders - and posing openly for photographs with the likes of Hillary Clinton.

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WASHINGTON - A top Utah fund-raiser for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign - who has links to an organization facing a civil lawsuit alleging child abuse - is no longer part of Romney's state finance team.
Robert Lichfield of La Verkin, who founded the umbrella group called the Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, brought in some $300,000 earlier this year for Romney during a single Utah event and has donated tens of thousands to the former Massachusetts governor and other Republicans in recent years.

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The Romney campaign also acted immediately when a top fund-raiser, Alan B. Fabian, was indicted this month by a Maryland grand jury in connection with an alleged $32 million fraud scheme. Romney's campaign announced that Fabian had resigned as cochairman of its national finance committee and that it would return his $2,300 contribution, but not money that Fabian raised from others.
Republicans Rudy Giuliani and John McCain and Democrat Bill Richardson have suffered similar embarrassments to their presidential campaigns in recent months.

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Hsu Fly (updated)
Clarice Feldman
Norman Hsu has skipped, following the path of so many Clinton donors with apparent foreign sources of money who are under investigation. The question is why did the judge ever let him out on bail after he'd skipped the first time, fifteen years ago?

Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu (SHOO) has failed to appear for a bail hearing in Redwood City.


Hsu forfeits the $2 million bail he posted last week. A judge has issued a new warrant for his arrest.

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ORIGINAL: Soxfan

Why is this a surprise?

Please don't tell me that there are still people that don't think the Clintons are slimy, diabolical, criminals.

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Ex-Fugitive's Fundraising Talent Put Him on Democrats' A-List

By Matthew Mosk and John Solomon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 7, 2007; Page A03

Last week, before his world came crashing down, Norman Hsu helped organize a breakfast meeting in San Francisco with prospective donors. The featured attraction was Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

The meeting was hardly unusual for Hsu, a New York apparel manufacturer for much of his career whose success at raising money had propelled him into the upper echelon of Democratic politics.


In the past four years, Hsu raised more than $1.2 million for Democratic causes and candidates, including the DNC and the campaign of New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer. And in the past six months, Hsu became a leading fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.). A person familiar with Clinton's fundraising, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Hsu had raised "in the hundreds of thousands of dollars" since January for Clinton's presidential bid.

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A Boy Named Hsu

Norman Yung Yuen Hsu is an American businessman in the apparel industry and a major donor to the Democratic Party and Democratic causes. He has personally given over $250,000 to the Democratic Party during recent election cycles and over $600,000 to federal, state and municipal candidates since 2004. In addition, he has acted as a "bundler," someone who gathers contributions from other individuals within an organization or community and presents them to a campaign.

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Who Is Hsu? Captured Fundraiser Didn't Vote
Email
Share September 07, 2007 12:25 PM

Justin Rood Reports:

Mysterious Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu is in custody again, after a brief return to a fugitive lifestyle he maintained for 15 years. But new questions are cropping up about his past.

The latest puzzle: Despite funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into Democratic coffers, Norman Hsu is not a member of the Democratic party. In fact, records appear to reflect he isn't even registered to vote.

Hsu's name does not appear on voter rolls in either California, where Hsu lived in the 1980s and early 1990s, or in New York, where he lived more recently, according to documents and state officials.

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Clinton to Return $850,000 in Donations Raised By Norman Hsu
Tuesday, September 11, 2007

E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign said Monday it will return $850,000 in donations raised by Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, who is under federal investigation for allegedly violating election laws.

Clinton, D-N.Y., previously had planned only to give to charity $23,000 she received from Hsu for her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to her political action committee, HillPac.

The FBI is investigating whether Hsu paid so-called straw donors to send campaign contributions to Clinton and other candidates, a law enforcement official said Monday.

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Hsu's $40 Million Windfall
Rick Moran
The Wall Street Journal (Subscription required) has partially solved the mystery of where the mysterious Norman Hsu's funds for donating to Democratic candidates came from:


New documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal may help point to an answer: A company controlled by Mr. Hsu recently received $40 million from a Madison Avenue investment fund run by Joel Rosenman, who was one of the creators of the Woodstock rock festival in 1969. That money, Mr. Rosenman told investors this week, is missing.
It seems that Mr. Rosenman recently sent a letter to investors with his Source Financing group, telling them not to expect any payback on their $40 million given to one of Mr. Hsu's false front companies, Components Ltd - a business that apparently makes nothing, sells nothing, and buys nothing, only moving money from its ledgers into the coffers of Democratic candidates.

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Team Clinton can't explain ignoring warnings on Hsu

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BY JAMES GORDON MEEK and MICHAEL McAULIFF
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Wednesday, September 12th 2007, 4:00 AM


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WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton's campaign couldn't explain yesterday why it blew off warnings about felon-turned-fund-raiser Norman Hsu - and the Daily News learned FBI agents are collecting e-mail evidence in the widening scandal.

Clinton was forced Monday to give back a whopping $850,000 raised by convicted scam artist Hsu after learning his investment ventures were being probed by the FBI as a potential Ponzi scheme.

She earlier gave to charity $23,000 Hsu donated himself after reports revealed he fled sentencing for a $1 million scam in California in 1992.

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The New York District Attorney*** is now investigating Hsu for defrauding a New York investment fund out of $40 million dollars and today in court the prosecutor said he heard Hsu was also the target of an investigation of a possible scam in Southern California.

"Orange County authorities are on the verge of filing charges on a very similar alleged scam involving $33 million dollars with 50 different investors," said Hautzinger.

"I think $50 million is ridiculous frankly," said Defense attorney Eric Elliff.

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ORIGINAL: phreddy

Did anyone notice the part where Hillary said that the donors who got their(?) money back would be encouraged to donate the returned funds directly to her campaign? What a great way to launder money. There is good reason to suspect that a lot of that money was not the donors' in the first place, but came from Hsu.

I would like to think that a person with common sense (and ethics) would distance themselves from all of those people and thier money. Why ask for it to come back with all of the questions it is going to raise? Does she need that $830,000 that bad?

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On Wednesday, she told reporters those "returned" contributions would be welcome back into the campaign. All those "contributors" needed to do was to say the money came from their own personal funds.

Quite a scam.

(Column continues below)



It's reminiscent of turning a $10,000 investment in cattle futures into a $100,000 asset overnight.